By Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal and Sahadev Sharma

CHICAGO —  At first glance, the post from an X user named @Brooks_Gate seemed like something a multibillion-dollar company would ignore.

It consisted of a chart that used estimated data to illustrate the percentage of revenue spent on player payroll. Rather than sitting at the top with heavyweights like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs were lumped in near the bottom alongside the crosstown White Sox as well as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — the lightweight class.

The Wrigley Field money-making machine drove the Cubs to the third-highest revenue in Major League Baseball last year, according to sources briefed on the club’s finances. Yet even as one of the world’s most beloved ballparks hums along, a single post on social media struck a nerve with fans — and inside the executive offices.

When fans stream into Wrigley Field for Friday’s 1:20 p.m. home opener, unmistakable signs of the disparity between revenue and payroll will be visible. It’s seen in making Craig Counsell the highest-paid manager in the game and then handing him almost the same roster that got David Ross fired after the 2023 season. It’s seen in trading for Kyle Tucker after back-to-back years with 83 wins, but not going all-out to maximize his final season before becoming a free agent. It’s seen in handing the third-base job to an unproven rookie at the start of a playoffs-or-bust season, after budgetary restrictions effectively took them out of the running for Matt Chapman and Alex Bregman.

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how much revenue each MLB team generated last year, and how much of that is going towards their payroll this year pic.twitter.com/UAZmHhaR8a

— BrooksGate (@Brooks_Gate) March 29, 2025

The graphic that perturbed Cubs executives was just one of many floating around in the vast expanse of social media. But it captured the growing belief that the Cubs no longer seem quite as singularly focused on winning the World Series, at least compared to the way that 1908 once hung over prior regimes.

One reason is the payroll parameters set by the Ricketts family ownership group and Crane Kenney’s business operations department. Another is the rising cost of doing business in the hypercompetitive National League. Taken together, those factors have left the club in a somewhat nebulous state, as legitimate contenders but with a margin for error that is arguably thinner than it should be.

The organization’s decision-makers dispute that notion. They believe the graphic is misleading and that they are making forward-looking financial choices, from hiring Counsell to building a scouting presence in Japan to enhancing player development.

“Talking about team revenue and payroll without including the other investments in baseball and business operations, as well as the impact of revenue sharing, does not show the whole picture,” said Kenney, a reference to the capital expenditures to maintain a team-owned ballpark that opened in 1914, and operating costs to run a popular tourist attraction.

Still, one league source referred to “the handcuffs” that Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer has dealt with while trying to build a playoff contender. A competing view, however, is that the Cubs spent roughly $100 million more than the Milwaukee Brewers last year and still finished 10 games behind that small-market team.

“The focus should not be on payroll,” Hoyer said. “Last season we went over the luxury tax and we ultimately didn’t win. That’s on me. I think we’ve built a better team this year and I’m excited for the season.”

On paper, the club remains a favorite to win the NL Central with a solid pitching staff, first-round picks all over the field and the ability to upgrade at the trade deadline. This new Cubs Way could work. But success would come despite the discrepancy highlighted by the graphic on social media. The Cubs’ spending on payroll does not appear to match their revenues.

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Imagine what Chicago’s lineup would look like with Chapman or Bregman hitting in the middle of the order and playing Gold Glove defense at third base. Within the past two offseasons, the Cubs had their chances to sign those All-Stars, who lingered on the free-agent market longer than expected.

Hoyer’s baseball operations department viewed each player as a sound investment and lasted into the final rounds with Scott Boras, the high-powered agent who represents both Chapman and Bregman. Those negotiations, however, went down as missed opportunities.

Matt Shaw, the unproven player tapped to play third base, might wind up being the NL’s Rookie of the Year. But the Cubs also could have bought more time for Shaw, the No. 13 pick in the 2023 draft, or upgraded in other areas to lower some of the team’s overall unpredictability.

Shaw started spring training this year understanding that Bregman was a possibility for a front office that often stays engaged on free agents deep into February or even March.

The year before, with a hole at third base, league sources said the Cubs kept Chapman on their radar but never made a formal offer due to budgetary constraints.

Chapman eventually signed a three-year, $54 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. While the Cubs started seven different players at third base last year — all no longer in the organization — Chapman posted 7.1 wins above replacement, per Baseball Reference.

“The Cubs had a lot of interest in me,” Chapman told The Athletic. “They were willing to do a one-year deal with me.

“There was just no way I could take the Cubs’ one-year deal, just for protection purposes. I was definitely considering it. I thought it would have been a good place to play. I thought they were a good team.

“Even if it was two with an opt-out after the first year, I would have really had to take a look at it. But they said with the way their money was, they could only do a one-year. I was just like, ‘That’s just too risky.’”

Boras first placed another client, Cody Bellinger, back with the Cubs before securing Chapman’s deal with the Giants. Chapman played so well in the Bay Area that he wound up signing a six-year, $151 million contract extension last September.

Bellinger, meanwhile, had a good-but-not-great season with the Cubs, which convinced him to opt in for another year on his current deal. Rather than retain the former MVP, the Cubs traded Bellinger to the New York Yankees last December, a move that lined up with their blockbuster deal to acquire Tucker from the Houston Astros.

In a salary dump, the Cubs gave up Bellinger for Cody Poteet, a 30-year-old pitcher who got designated for assignment last week and was then traded to the Baltimore Orioles for cash considerations.

Internal frustrations resurfaced in February once the Cubs missed on another third baseman. Bregman picked the Red Sox, signing a three-year, $120 million contract that includes a substantial amount of deferred money that lowered the present-day value.

Hoyer was authorized to present Bregman and Boras a four-year deal worth $115 million, according to league sources, which paled in comparison to offers made by the Astros (six years, $156 million) and Detroit Tigers (six years, $171.5 million) as well as the opportunity in Boston.

While thanking the Ricketts family for the freedom to pursue Bregman, Hoyer also made it clear to reporters that this was deemed an exceptional case. The money earmarked for Bregman would not be automatically transferred into this year’s budget for baseball operations.

Hoyer also revealed that the Cubs were around their budget limits last year when ownership gave the approval to sign Bellinger. Their final 2024 payroll wound up ninth in the majors, according to The Associated Press, at almost $240 million, or just slightly over MLB’s luxury-tax threshold.

If Hoyer had to make a special request for Bellinger, then signing another All-Star shortly thereafter would have been out of the question. This was not lost on one of the sport’s most influential agents.

“The winning commitment barometer of a major-league team is the percentage of revenues invested in talent,” Boras said.

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Ten years ago, Cubs executives were highlighted in a glowing Bloomberg Businessweek cover story that declared “a sports empire is in bloom.” The major-league club had finished in fifth place five years running, and the franchise had not captured a World Series title since Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential administration. Still, the roaring optimism proved to be accurate.

Theo Epstein, the curse-buster from Boston, had recruited Hoyer to serve as his general manager in a growing front office, and later hired star manager Joe Maddon. Big-name free agents flocked to Chicago for the money and the chance to make history.

Just as the baseball side of the organization had modernized scouting and player development systems to support an elite farm system, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and Kenney’s group realized the synergy of a renovated Wrigley Field, which suddenly became the new avatar for a franchise long known as the Lovable Losers.

Kenney delivered the money quote in that Bloomberg Businessweek story: “Basically, my job is fill a wheelbarrow with money, take it to Theo’s office, and dump it.”

The wheelbarrow was big enough to win the 2016 World Series and carry the NL’s highest payroll in 2019, a disappointing season that was the lone playoff miss amid five postseason appearances between 2015 and 2020. But since the fall of what they hoped would be a dynasty, the Cubs have taken a conservative approach while certain NL clubs continue to operate aggressively.

The financials for almost every MLB franchise are opaque, but The Associated Press gave a snapshot on Opening Day 2025 that ranked the Cubs 12th out of 30 clubs with a major-league payroll nearing $193 million, which put them lower than the Arizona Diamondbacks.

That total does not reflect the organization’s entire spend on baseball operations. A team source indicated the Cubs were fifth in that category last year, though the NL is becoming a different kind of arms race.

The Mets, pushed by owner Steve Cohen, and Dodgers, taking advantage of an exceptional TV deal, are both carrying major-league payrolls north of $300 million. The Philadelphia Phillies, led by managing partner John Middleton, have added more investors in recent years as the club pushed its payroll toward the $300 million level.

The Atlanta Braves followed a Wrigleyville blueprint, building The Battery Atlanta around Truist Park, and business is booming. The San Diego Padres just signed Jackson Merrill, a dynamic young center fielder, to a nine-year, $135 million contract extension, which now gives the club six players on nine-figure deals.

“Deficit spending in the National League has definitely accelerated in the past five years,” Kenney said. “This has added pressure to grow revenue in new ways and innovate beyond our comfort zone.”

Forbes recently assessed the Cubs at $4.6 billion, the fourth-most valuable franchise in baseball, an astronomical increase from the $845 million purchase price of the team, Wrigley Field and a piece of a regional sports network in 2009. The Ricketts family subsequently sold equity shares to help finance the stadium renovations, but they do not view that as a sustainable strategy for signing free agents and propping up payroll.

Even as valuations soar — the Boston Celtics, an iconic NBA team, recently sold for $6.1 billion — industry sources said the franchise remains a generational asset for the Ricketts family. Navigating this next phase will be a challenge.

“The business model in baseball, it’s worked pretty well for a long time, but there’s a few things right now that are just a little out of kilter,” Ricketts said on 670 The Score during the team’s winter fan festival. “The Dodgers have a lot more resources, naturally, from smart business moves they made years ago. I don’t begrudge them any of that.

“I understand when fans say, ‘How come you don’t spend like that?’ Because they think somehow we have all these dollars that the Dodgers have or the Mets have or the Yankees have and we just keep it. Which isn’t true at all. What happens is we try to break even every year.”

Ricketts clarified his Cubs Convention comments during a recent sit-down interview with CNBC.

“Maybe using the word ‘break even’ wasn’t the way I wanted to say that,” Ricketts told CNBC. “I just want people to know that every dollar that’s spent at the ballpark goes back into putting a more competitive team on the field. Away from that, everyone knows — every Cub fan knows — that we’ve invested roughly a billion dollars into Wrigley Field itself and the neighborhood around, so it’s not a matter of us not investing. We are putting the best team on the field that we can every year.

“Fortunately, for baseball, player development is as important as how much you’re spending on free agents, so we just keep grinding and doing the blocking and tackling that build the organization from the bottom up.”

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In 2020, when Hoyer took over for Epstein, the Cubs refused to label it as a rebuild. But they made no secret that there would be changes.

Hoyer dealt with the COVID-19-related budget cuts that forced his group to non-tender Kyle Schwarber and trade Yu Darvish in the middle of a pandemic. When the Cubs began to collapse months later, Hoyer made the bold move to unload Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez in a flurry of deals at the 2021 trade deadline.

All those unpopular and unsentimental decisions eventually left the Cubs without any players remaining from their 2016 World Series team.

But what has surprised some players, agents and rivals is the cautiousness that has followed that period of transition.

“They announced what they were going to do when Jed took over,” said one executive who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss another club. “They were going to take a step back and they have. There was the assumption that once they got to a particular point they would start investing very heavily again. And they’ve probably been a little bit more methodical about it than a lot of people in the industry thought they would.”

The expectation was that Kenney’s wheelbarrow of money would come in once the front office reconstructed a stable foundation. While that has not yet happened in full force, the rival exec said, “They’re arguably the favorites in that division now. They’re still in pretty decent shape even with somewhat more modest spending.”

But big spending is the competitive advantage in a division where every other club routinely collects competitive balance draft picks to stack up more prospects. And if deficit spending, equity sales and deferred money are becoming common practices for the sport’s top teams, then the Cubs’ seeming reluctance to more assertively wield those financial tools becomes noticeable.

The Cubs’ pursuit of Bregman indicated that the bigger wheelbarrow has yet to arrive. Bregman passed the scouting eye test and the club’s projection model. Third base represented the only spot on the field where the Cubs did not have an established position player. Bregman’s championship experience and baseball IQ could have provided intangible benefits, and he’s close with Tucker after their time together in Houston.

After years of creating a solid major-league nucleus and restocking the farm system, this felt like the moment to strike. Instead, the Cubs whiffed and moved forward with Shaw, a top prospect and one of several talented young players who are being counted on to have breakthrough years.

Hoyer is now in the final year of his contract and under pressure. The rival official pointed to the Tucker trade, one that will be endlessly debated if the Cubs miss the playoffs this year and the Astros turn Cam Smith, the headlining prospect in that deal, into a superstar. The outcome may prove to be a referendum on the Cubs — and whether they’ll continue to face scrutiny for their spending.

“They’re going to have a test case with Kyle Tucker,” the rival executive said. “One extension probably puts all of that discussion to bed. And they have been active in a variety of these conversations. They just haven’t quite landed the player.”

Until they do, an undercurrent of frustration will run through Wrigleyville and social media, and the rumbling over time will only grow louder. Unless this is the year the Cubs win big.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photo: Quinn Harris / Getty Images)

A brawl involving players at a youth street hockey game in New Jersey took a turn for the worst after several adults got involved in an altercation of their own, leading to multiple charges, according to law enforcement. 

During the Veterans Memorial Invitational Tournament in Egg Harbor Township, which is about eight miles outside Atlantic City, a fight broke out between players on the Maple Shade Cadet and Frenzy Cadet teams. 

Video of the fight obtained by Fox News Digital shows the players shoving and throwing punches as game officials attempt to break it up. Chaos quickly ensues as players leave their respective benches. 

Several adults also rush over to break up the fighting, but video surveillance soon shows those adults fighting with one another, with two wrestling to the ground.

Egg Harbor Township Police Department announced Thursday that three adults were charged in connection with the incident: Colleen Biddle, 41, of Philadelphia, Robert Schafer, 38, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, and Justin Pacheco, 38, of Philadelphia. 

All three were charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct and were given summonses to appear in court. 

HIGH SCHOOL TRACK ATHLETE, 16, FATALLY STABBED AT CHAMPIONSHIP MEET, OFFICIALS SAY

The American Ball Hockey Alliance (ABHA) released a statement condemning the behavior. 

“First and foremost, we want to emphasize that this type of behavior is NOT representative of normal street/dek hockey play, and violence is NEVER condoned in our sport. The ABHA maintains a strict code of conduct that all players, coaches, and organizations must adhere to, with severe penalties for those who engage in violent actions. Additionally, we take the role of spectators very seriously and impose appropriate sanctions for those whose behavior as fans is disruptive or inflammatory.”

The ABHA added that the organization has launched its own internal investigation and will implement its own disciplinary actions. Both teams were suspended from the tournament and the coach of the Maple Shade Cadet team was suspended from the league. 

“It is important to note that this incident was instigated by out-of-town teams and, as such, does not reflect the values or behavior of the host facility, Egg Harbor Township Street Hockey, their teams, or their families,” their statement added. 

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Paige Bueckers ran off the court at Spokane Arena with a smile splitting her face and a Final Four hat perched atop her head. She waved to the crowd and headed for the UConn locker room.

The second-seeded Huskies had just beaten No. 1 seeded USC on Monday night behind Bueckers’ 31 points. Little girls shrieked and chanted her name alongside their mothers. Fans wore her famous No. 5 jersey. One held a sign saying she’d woken at 3 a.m. to fly to Washington to see Bueckers play. Another waved an American flag bearing an image of Bueckers’ face.

“Yeah, I don’t get it. I don’t get it,” Huskies coach Geno Auriemma quipped, because if he doesn’t rib his superstar, who else will?

“But it’s crazy.”

This is the orbit Bueckers occupies. With her must-see highlights (including a career-high 40 points in the Sweet 16), 2.2 million Instagram followers and NIL deals with companies such as Gatorade, she’s one of the most beloved players her sport has ever seen. The most famous ponytail in college hoops.

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Paige Bueckers in Spokane:

– 35.5 PPG
– 55.6 FG%
– 62.5 3FG%
– 4.5 RPG
– 3.5 APG
– 2.0 BPG
– 3.5 SPG

and that’s why she’s your Spokane Region 4 Most Outstanding Player pic.twitter.com/chMguMAjfY

— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) April 1, 2025

But with that level of attention comes an avalanche of pressure. No player in the tournament carries as much weight on her shoulders as Bueckers, UConn’s only superstar without a national championship.

“When you have all that, sometimes there’s a tendency to become, ‘What if I can’t live up to it?’ That’s the biggest worry that I always have,” Auriemma said. “That if a kid gets overwhelmed by the attention and the adulation and the expectation, then you’re always scared, what if at some point she wakes up one morning and goes, ‘What if I can’t live up to it?’”

But Bueckers?

“The sucker never does that.”

That’s because Paige Bueckers — the first freshman to ever win the Naismith award and the presumed No. 1 WNBA Draft pick later this month — lives for these moments.

“It’s so easy for the pressure that she’s under to come through or let that affect you and she doesn’t at all. You never see her waver,” UConn guard and close pal Azzi Fudd said. “I never thought it felt cocky but just confident enough.

“She could have the worst game, but she’s telling herself, ‘The basket was twisted. The basket was left, or lower.’ She’s honestly delusional. But she convinces herself (of) these things. And she’s still the best.”

‘In eighth grade playing varsity’

Bueckers was in middle school, playing against the No. 2 team in the state on former Hopkins coach Brian Cosgriff’s varsity team, when he first started to realize she was no ordinary prospect.

“She came off the bench and hit eight 3s in a row for us to win the game,” Cosgriff said. “And I’ll never forget it because when she was in eighth grade, in the one-on-one conferences I had with her, I said, ‘Paige, if you could go to one place and play basketball, where would it be?’ And she goes, ‘UConn.”‘

Cosgriff called then-Huskies assistant coach Marisa Moseley on the spot to let her know she would soon have film in her inbox.

In that sense, part of Bueckers’ ability to deliver in clutch situations and handle whatever expectations are thrust upon her may simply be the byproduct of clarity: Knowing exactly what she wants and how she plans to get it.

As a fifth-grader, Bueckers was always the friend who planned sleepovers, often dictating how things would go to her friends and volunteering to call their parents to fill them in on what she’d concocted.

“I’m like, ‘Girl, you can’t just be setting up sleepovers at other people’s houses!”‘ Tara Starks, Bueckers’ grassroots coach, recalled. “But … nothing really stepped in the way of that.”

Or maybe she just really is that confident, as Fudd suggested.

“I had a little get-together at the house for my daughter’s birthday, and I think my daughter might have been turning 21, somewhere in there,” Starks said. “And Paige came over.

“‘Dreams and Nightmares’ came on — that Meek Mill song. … And she starts rapping.”

Bueckers was 14. She rapped every word at the top of her lungs in front of Starks’ family and a group of her friends from Hopkins. By the end of the song, everyone in the living room had their hands up, jumping around, ready to party.

“(My family’s) looking like, ‘Man what the hell is this?’” Starks said, laughing. “I spend time with her on a day-to-day basis. And I’m thinking, ‘What in the hell? How do you know this song?’”

“That sounds like something she would do,” Taylor Woodson said.

 

‘Diana Taurasi reinvented’

Karl-Anthony Towns is the first to admit he wasn’t totally aware of the dynamic at play when Hopkins High met Wayzata High in March 2020 (just before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out).

In his fifth year with the Minnesota Timberwolves at the time, all Towns knew was that he had the day off and the perfect way to spend it.

“I had a time to actually go see (Bueckers) play,” said Towns, now with the New York Knicks. “And I wanted to go see it happen.”

Towns and a few Timberwolves teammates, including D’Angelo Russell, rolled into Hopkins that Thursday night, where Bueckers and the Royals already had plenty on the line against Wayzata. Both were top-five teams in the state, with Hopkins boasting Bueckers, as well as now-Minnesota Golden Gophers guards Amaya Battle and Woodson, now-Stanford forward Nunu Agara and former Arizona guard Maya Nnaji. Wayzata also had a trio of future Gophers in Mara Braun, Annika Stewart and Brynn Senden.

If Hopkins was going to advance to the state title game, it would be because the senior Bueckers delivered in the annual showdown.

“Geno was in the stands. … The Minnesota Timberwolves were there. There were four or 5,000 people,” Cosgriff said.

“Paige took the thing over.”

Midway through the matchup, Hopkins went up by 6 points, Cosgriff remembered. The Trojans — who had previously been in a zone defense — switched to man, hoping for some answers.

“Paige,” Cosgriff and his assistants asked. “What do you want to do?”

Bueckers — whose midrange game is among the most beautiful sights in basketball — chose a simple play the Royals called “Option 1.” A high ball screen that would put the ball in her hands and let her cook.

She ran it every possession for the rest of the night, drilling shot after shot to the tune of 33 points — or “more points than the weather outside,” as Battle joked — in an 86-76 victory.

“She can make an old ball coach look pretty damn good,” Cosgriff said. “She was like, ‘Give me the ball, get the hell out of the way.’ That’s what it was. And everybody, including us coaches, got the hell out of her way.”

Wayzata, meanwhile, had no answers.

“You can sometimes do a box-and-one and that can be effective, but not with Paige Bueckers,” said Wayzata assistant-turned-head coach Julie Stewart.

“It didn’t work that way with her.”

Towns sat in awe as he munched on a box of popcorn courtside and took it all in. The pandemic soon canceled Bueckers’ chance at winning a second consecutive state championship on the heels of a 62-game win streak, but he’d seen enough:

‘”She’s really damn good,’” Towns remembered thinking.

“I thought I was watching Diana Taurasi reinvented.”

‘She is by far the best’

Three months earlier, Liz Carpentier, the head coach at Farmington (Minn.) High, remembers having a similar experience.

Unlike Wayzata, Farmington was not in Hopkins’ section. The Tigers hosted Bueckers and the Royals in a nonconference matchup in early December 2019. But just like Wayzata, Farmington had plenty of talent in its own right. Still, it was obvious who everyone came to see.

“There was not even standing room only. The place was completely packed,” Carpentier said. “That single event has been the most fans that we’ve put in that gym. Boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, volleyball — there’s never been an atmosphere like that at Farmington.”

Hopkins and Farmington kept the game close for most of the first half. The boys on Carpentier’s practice squad had had a blast simulating Bueckers in practice that week and Farmington had game planned well.

“When you watch her play, her priority first is to get her teammates involved. Then she for sure takes games over in those high-pressure situations,” Carpentier said. “We ended up losing by 19 or 20 that game.”

Hopkins beat Farmington 77-52 on a night Bueckers had 31 points on 14 made field goals to go along with five assists and four steals. Her basketball IQ gave the Tigers fits all night — knowing how to perfectly read ball screens, when to pull up and when to kick out.

But just as impressive to Carpentier was how much fun Bueckers seemed to be having, despite how many eyes were on her and the pressure that came with carrying the state of Minnesota on her back. How free she looked. How she signed every autograph for every little girl in the gym who stayed behind afterward.

“She is by far the best girls basketball player to come out of Minnesota,” Carpentier said. “Just how much press and media and publicity that she’s gained … she handles everything with class and grace.”

‘This is what she’s wanted’

As Bueckers and UConn prepare to take on top overall seed UCLA on Friday night at Amalie Arena, the external expectations will reach an apex for the 23-year-old, who is just 80 minutes away from a potential national title.

Those in her corner try not to bring up what’s on the line — though Starks had a feeling UConn would be in Tampa when she secretly bought her Final Four tickets months ago.

“I worry sometimes about the pressure and all the things going on. I don’t know if I could handle that at that age,” Starks said. “(But) I think the reality of the situation is this is what she’s wanted. And so even though it’s nerve-racking, it might be stressful, it might be a lot — ultimately it’s, this … is exactly what I wanted my basketball career to be.”

To handle the stress, Bueckers has her go-tos.

She loves to read, particularly fiction, and has a shelf of books in her room. She’s a Wordle enthusiast, racing a handful of teammates every day to see who can finish the popular word game first. Gospel music helps calm her down pregame. And cutting out social media has been helpful — even if she occasionally cheats.

“She does love to watch her highlights and her edits,” Fudd said, laughing while she ratted Bueckers out. “So she’ll probably be trying to steal my phone later.”

Should Bueckers win a national championship this weekend, she’d complete the final missing piece of her UConn puzzle. She has made it clear that a national championship is her expectation. Now it’s up to her to handle the hype for two more games.

“I always had this feeling that she wasn’t going to let us lose,” Starks said of Bueckers’ grassroots days. “And that’s kind of the feeling that I have right now.

“I just have that feeling that she’s not gonna let this team lose.”

— The Athletic’s James L. Edwards III contributed to this report.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb, John Bradford / The Athletic; photo: Joe Buglewicz / Getty Images)

A man in Georgia was sentenced to 12 years in jail for scamming millions of dollars from a potential basketball Hall of Famer.

Three-time Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard testified in court that he gave Calvin Darden Jr. $7 million, thinking it was an investment toward the purchase of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.

Howard, an eight-time All-Star, then learned Darden was not an owner of the team when ESPN reported the team had been sold to an investor group.

Prosecutors said Darden and a sports agent also conned ex-NBA player Chandler Parsons into sending $1 million that was supposed to aid in the development of James Wiseman, who was drafted by the Golden State Warriors as the second overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.

But the two didn’t know Wiseman, and the player never agreed to be represented by the agent as they claimed to Parsons. Wiseman last played for the Indiana Pacers before being traded to the Toronto Raptors, who waived him earlier this year.

A Manhattan federal court judge on Thursday ordered Darden to forfeit $8 million and several luxury items he acquired with his ill-gotten gains, including a $3.7 million Atlanta mansion, $600,000 in artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce.

NBA ISSUES WARNING TO JA MORANT AFTER GRIZZLIES STAR’S APPARENT FINGER GUN GESTURE TOWARD WARRIORS: REPORT

Darden was convicted by a jury in October of wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering charges.

He was previously sentenced to a year in federal prison in New York for impersonating his father, Cal Darden, a former executive at Atlanta-based United Parcel Service, in a failed bid to buy Maxim magazine.

The Atlanta Dream were once co-owned by former Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, but she was pressured to sell after clashing with players over her opposition to the league’s racial justice initiatives.

Howard was the first pick of the 2004 NBA Draft by the Orlando Magic. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Earlier this week, Ja Morant pulled out a gun celebration, and it was reported that he was given a warning by the NBA after an investigation.

Well, he didn’t quite get the message, as he did the celebration again on Thursday.

After hitting a three-pointer, Morant motioned his arms to that of a large gun.

The celebration occurred just over five minutes into the ball game.

Morant’s first instance of the celebration this week occurred against the Golden State Warriors. The act saw Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, two Golden State stars, visibly upset on the hardwood, with the latter trying to plead to the referee that something should be done to discipline Morant. 

Morant’s history with gun-related suspensions made the gesture blow up across the basketball world. He was suspended for eight games in March 2023 after brandishing a handgun on social media at the strip club Shotgun Willie’s outside of Denver. 

NIKOLA JOKIC SCORES 61 POINTS IN EPIC PERFORMANCE BUT NUGGETS FALL IN DOUBLE OT: ‘THE GUY’S SUPERMAN’

Then, Morant was docked the first 25 games of the 2023-24 season after he flashed a handgun again on a social media live video. 

Ahead of the suspensions, Morant found himself in trouble on more than one occasion, including one incident in which he got into a fight with a then-17-year-old during a pickup basketball game at his own home (it was ruled Morant acted in self-defense). Four days earlier, Morant had allegedly “threatened” the head of security at a Memphis mall, and a member of Morant’s group shoved him in the head. 

Morant was also placed under the microscope after a January 2023 game in which an unidentified individual in the NBA star’s vehicle was accused of shining a laser pointer at the Indiana Pacers’ team bus. It happened after some members of Morant’s entourage were involved in a confrontation with a group of people in the Pacers’ traveling party.

Fox News’ Scott Thompson and Chantz Martin contributed to this report.

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When it comes to stopping a scorer in a one-on-one situation, NHL goalies are better than they’ve ever been.

The league-wide save percentage has dipped in recent years — steadily declining from .910 in 2019-20 to .900 this season — as offensive strategies improve and shooters find ways to beat goalies with screens, deflections and backdoor plays. Beating a goaltender with a clean shot has become incredibly difficult.

Listen to the dressing room conversations after a team is shut out. You’ll hear players and coaches parrot the same reasons for the lack of goals.

“We needed more bodies in front of the net.”

“We didn’t get in the goalie’s eyes enough.”

“Goalies are too good nowadays. If they see the shot, they stop it.”

To an extent, these commonly-used phrases are true. Modern goalies are such good skaters that they’re usually in excellent position, giving shooters very little net to shoot at. They’ve trained their entire lives, specializing in reading shots, so it takes something truly exceptional to get the puck past them when they have their feet set and clear vision of the shot.

In response, today’s elite scorers are finding ways to use these goalies’ reads against them. They pick up on the clues goalies are using to predict shot locations, and then give the netminder false information in an attempt to fool them. Being an elite scorer is becoming less about who can shoot the puck the hardest, or even the most accurately, and more about who can conceal their true intentions and mislead the opposition with deception.

We’ll look at specific examples of these subtle acts of deception, and why they’re so effective, by examining four of the league’s craftiest goal-scorers: Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, William Nylander and Kyle Connor.

First, it’s important to understand how goalies react to shots. The term “lightning-quick reflexes” is often overstated. Yes, these netminders have exceptional reaction time, but the human body has limitations. A study by Harvard University showed that the average human reaction time is 220 milliseconds, and the average recognition reaction time is 384 milliseconds.

An 80-mph shot from the point (55 feet away from the net) reaches the goalie in less than 470 milliseconds. A shot of the same speed from the middle of the slot (20 feet away from the net) reaches the goalie in 170 milliseconds.

That means on most shots from in close, a goalie doesn’t have the time to actually see where the puck is being shot and then react to its flight. Most of the time, they are reading the shooter’s body language and stick blade to predict where the shot is going. After seeing thousands and thousands of shots over their lifetimes, goalies become incredible at it, giving the illusion that they’re actually reacting to the puck. The truth is, if a shooter simulated a shot without an actual puck, the goalie would still know where the “shot” was heading in most instances.

On this goal Crosby scored on March 11, he took the way Vegas Golden Knights goalie Ilya Samsonov read the blade of his stick and used it to his advantage.

Crosby is as crafty as they come, and has plenty of time and space on this play. The deception is so subtle that it’s difficult to notice without slow motion, but watch how Crosby opens his stick blade wide just before releasing the shot. Everything about this release tells Samsonov that Crosby is likely shooting high to the blocker side, but with a quick flick of the wrist, Crosby turns down the toe of his stick blade at the last moment and rifles a low shot just inside Samsonov’s left skate.

If you look closely, you can even see Samsonov’s blocker flinch to his right, where he anticipated the shot would go. The minor weight transfer that a goalie makes when leaning into a blocker save means that his opposite leg will typically be slower getting to the ice, which is why Crosby shot to the short side. It’s a simple-looking goal with a lot happening beneath the surface.

Kucherov uses a similar form of deception, especially on breakaways. This goal he scored against the Penguins on Jan. 12 is a great example of a move he often uses to beat goalies in one-on-one situations.

Kucherov fans his stick blade open, very similar to Crosby in the previous clip, and doesn’t close the toe until midway through the release. Because the change is so late, he regularly leaves goalies flashing their blocker way out to their side, only for Kucherov to curl the puck inside, underneath their armpit, like he does to Tristan Jarry on this play.

The initial deke to pull the puck outside of his body is crucial because it gets the goalie off-angle. When Kucherov had the puck directly in front of him, Jarry was perfectly on angle with the line from the puck to the center of the net running straight through the middle of his chest. That quickly changed when Kucherov pulled the puck outside, giving an edge to the shooter.

You can see how much room there is to the short side after Kucherov pulls the puck outside, and it’s probably why goalies throw their blocker out so aggressively when he shoots. They can sense that they’re off the angle and expect the puck to go between their blocker and the post. Instead of shooting at that opening, Kucherov anticipates the goalie’s next move and shoots where the next opening will be.

He’d pulled the same move the night before against Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom stabs his blocker out aggressively, only for Kucherov to tuck the puck inside it with his late toe curl.

Kucherov has mastered this trick to the point where it feels almost unfair to the goalie. It’s his go-to move on breakaways. Part of what makes it so effective is his speed. Few players approach these situations at the speed Kucherov does, which only makes it more difficult for the goalie to read him.

Here he is scoring on Columbus’ Elvis Merzlikins and Philadelphia’s Ivan Fedotov with the same move on March 4 and March 17. It’s no coincidence that every one of these goalies over-extends their blocker. Kucherov is baiting them into it with slight manipulation of his stick blade, combined with the fact that the deke gets the goalies off their angle.

There’s a reason Kucherov has outscored his expected goals metrics in nine of the last 10 seasons, according to Evolving-Hockey. Expected goals models are based on how often players score on a shot given the location and several other factors, but it doesn’t account for shooting skill, which Kucherov has in abundance.

Elite scorers use more than just the stick blade to mislead goalies. Maple Leafs star Nylander has been duping netminders with a kicking motion that he uses quite often. Here’s an example of him using a high kick with his trail leg on this overtime winner against the Devils on Jan. 16.

This move isn’t unique to Nylander. It’s a standard off-leg shot with the left leg (in Nylander’s case because he’s right-handed) hiking into the air to gain leverage and add velocity to the snap shot. It’s a technique mostly used when skating in stride, because it allows for a quicker release, and more often than not it’s used on high shots, such as the one Nylander beat Markstrom with on this play.

Here’s where it starts to get tricky. Nylander has realized that goalies are reading the off-leg snap shots, and is now starting to turn that against them. On this goal – which also happened to come against New Jersey – Nylander kicks the leg up, but shoots the puck along the ice.

You can see Devils goalie Jake Allen react as if the shot is going high-glove. Not only does Nylander kick his leg, his follow-through is mimicking a high shot. If Allen had correctly read that it was going to be a low shot, he would’ve driven his knees into the ice and sealed his butterfly. Instead, he reaches his glove out and his left pad is late to seal, and that’s exactly where Nylander scores.

Up in Winnipeg, Connor is having another excellent season. He’s one of the most under-appreciated scorers in the league, with at least 30 goals in all eight of his full NHL seasons (excluding the shortened 2020-21 season, when he still almost hit the mark).

Connor’s biggest weapon is a ridiculously fast release that is tough for goalies to read. He uses a CCM Ribcor stick with a P92 “Sakic” curve, named after Avalanche Hall of Famer Joe Sakic. It’s the most iconic stick curve and the most popular among NHL players, with a bit of an open toe to promote higher shots.

One of the biggest keys for Connor is the 85 flex in the stick shaft. It’s not the flimsiest stick in the NHL, but it’s on the more flexible side. That allows him to whip the puck at high velocity without putting a ton of weight or pressure into the stick. His upright shooting style gives goaltenders little warning that a shot is coming, and it regularly catches them off-guard.

He did it Monday night against Vancouver, casually zipping a shot by Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko in transition.

There’s very little shoulder dip or forward body lean prior to the shot, which makes it difficult for Demko to anticipate. It’s also a bit out of rhythm, which is a difficult concept to describe but makes a shot feel as though it’s coming out of nowhere for the goalie. In this instance, Connor shoots off of his outside (right) leg, which is typically accompanied by a lowering of the upper body as the player jumps from his inside to outside leg, building energy and leverage.

Demko has some of the best footwork of any goalie in the NHL, and yet Connor still catches him between shuffles. Shooting the puck just a half beat before the goalie expects it can make all the difference.

Connor also uses more obvious forms of deception to maximize his quick release and catch goalies off guard, like this no-look shot that tricked San Jose goalie Alexandar Georgiev on Dec. 17.

Georgiev knows there are several passing threats on the backside of the play (both Cole Perfetti in the low slot and Mark Scheifele near the far post) so he’s already hyper-aware of a cross-seam pass. When Connor glances to the middle of the ice as he loads his stick for the shot, it clearly throws the goalie off. Georgiev doesn’t cheat positionally by flattening out along his goal line. He’s still square to the puck, but he shifts his weight onto his left leg to prepare for a lateral explosion across the crease in the event of a pass.

Because of that, when Connor shoots high to the short side, Georgiev makes an awkward looking stab at the puck with his glove without even dropping into the butterfly. The reason the save attempt looks so strange is Georgiev’s weight transfer is not where it would normally be due to the threat of the pass, amplified by Connor’s head fake.

With the skill and intelligence of the modern goaltender, shooters are relying more and more on deception. The days of winding up and ripping shots past the goalie with sheer velocity are long gone. Lateral passing plays, deflections and screens will still be the most efficient way to score, but when a shooter faces a goalie mano a mano, deception is king.

(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; Photos: Mark LoMoglio, Mark Blinch, Daniel Bartel, Jaylynn Nash / Getty Images)

Right before a match against a transgender opponent, fencer Stephanie Turner took a knee and forefeited her match.

Ahead of a bout at the Cherry Blossom Open in Maryland over the weekend, Turner, 31, decided not to compete against trans athlete Redmond Sullivan.

It was a move Riley Gaines supported, calling Turner a “heroine.”

“Isn’t it amazing how simply this can be explained? The other side likes to say this is complex, it’s a complex issue. Stephanie Turner is a heroine in my eyes,” Gaines told “America’s Newsroom.” 

“This was at a junior women’s Olympic qualifying event. So, it’s a really big deal. These aren’t scrubs. This is the pinnacle of their sport at this point. I commend her for taking this measure. It’s not easy to do, ultimately deciding to boycott. But it’s the most effective way to say enough is enough.”

Gaines, who swam four years at the University of Kentucky, including against Penn’s Lia Thomas, then took a shot at the NCAA.

“The NCAA has continued to deceive the American people, and they’ve deceived President Trump in this. … The NCAA is repeatedly rewarding the replacement of women in order to champion men and women’s sport, which is exactly why myself and about 19 other plaintiffs are suing the NCAA.

TENNIS LEGEND MARTINA NAVRATILOVA ‘FUMING’ AFTER FEMALE FENCER PUNISHED FOR REFUSING TO TAKE ON TRANS ATHLETE

“When they use the word inclusion, what they really mean is exclusion. And the people they are excluding are women.”

Turner made her decision to forfeit the night before the event when she checked the competition pools and saw that she would be facing Sullivan, whom she had read about in an article last year. 

“I knew what I had to do because USA Fencing had not been listening to women’s objections regarding [its gender eligibility policy],” Turner said. “I took a knee immediately at that point. Redmond was under the impression that I was going to start fencing. So, when I took the knee, I looked at the ref, and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do this. I am a woman, and this is a man. And this is a women’s tournament. And I will not fence this individual.'”

Minutes later, the referees issued Turner a black card, the sport’s most severe penalty, leading to her ejection from the tournament.

A USA Fencing spokesperson told Fox News Digital Turner was not penalized for her stance against trans inclusion. Instead, she was punished for refusing to compete. 

Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.

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If you are reading this, you likely know who Paige Bueckers is. Maybe you are also familiar with Lauren Betts, Maddie Booker and MiLaysia Fulwiley.

But Meg Aronowitz, a senior vice president of production for ESPN and the company’s point person for its women’s basketball coverage, cannot afford to make a similar supposition. When the women’s Final Four games air on Friday (7 p.m. ET and 9:30 p.m. ET), she and her ESPN colleagues have to cater, at least in part, to the casual viewer who might watch only one or two women’s basketball games each year.

“This is the part of the tournament where we have to absolutely remind ourselves that this is an entirely new audience joining us,” Aronowitz said. “I know that that sounds very TV cliche, but we have to teach them who these stars are. I tell my people — repeat your best stuff. New viewers are tuning in every round, and we have to make sure that we are giving people a reason to come back on Sunday for the title game.”

We have reached the most interesting part of this tournament as far as a media-centric examination. Why? Because of last year’s outlier viewership. ESPN executives know that it will be impossible to duplicate the Final Four viewership numbers from a year ago — and that is a direct result of Caitlin Clark not being in this tournament. Iowa’s win over UConn in the national semifinals set a then-new record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history with an average of 14.2 million viewers. It was ultimately topped by the 18.9 million viewers who watched the title game between Iowa and South Carolina. Yes, there are plenty of popular players in women’s basketball but only one viewership unicorn — that kid from Iowa with unlimited range.

But this year’s numbers present data points that speak to the growth of women’s college basketball writ large. The Elite Eight games averaged 2.9 million viewers, the second most-watched Elite Eight round on record, only behind the Clark-infused (6.2 million viewers) numbers from last year. Elite Eight games in 2025 were up 34 percent from 2023. ESPN said four of the top 10 Elite Eight games on record aired this year, including:

• LSU-UCLA (3.4 million viewers, No. 3 Elite Eight game all-time)

• Duke-SC (3.1 million, No. 4)

• UConn-USC (3.0 million, No. 6)

• TCU-Texas (2.3 million, No. 9)

The Sweet 16 round averaged 1.7 million viewers across ESPN’s networks, the second-most-watched Sweet 16 on record behind last year (which averaged 2.4 million viewers) and up 39 percent from 2023. This year delivered four of the top 10 Sweet 16 games of all time, including 2.9 million for Tennessee-Texas (No. 3) and 2.5 million for Notre Dame-TCU (No. 4).

The second round of the women’s tournament averaged 982,000 viewers, the second-most-watched second round on record behind the 1.4 million viewer average last year. It was up 60 percent from 2023.

The first round of the women’s tournament averaged 367,000 viewers. That’s down 22 percent from 471,000 last year (as expected without Clark) but up 43 percent from 2023.

Heading into the Final Four, all games have averaged 967,000 viewers, up 47 percent from 2023.

“People came to the women’s Final Four last year because they wanted to see what Caitlin Clark would do,” Aronowitz said. “But it wasn’t just the Iowa games that were rating. The entire tournament rated for us, and it is our job to make sure that we continue to tell the stories of the teams and these student-athletes and give people a reason to stick around.”

ESPN will focus a ton this weekend on Bueckers because stars draw people in. The UConn star had 40 points in the Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma and 31 points against USC on Monday. She is averaging 29 points per game in the tournament.

We’ll never know, given the devastating ACL injury to USC star JuJu Watkins, but you can imagine that the Elite Eight game featuring a healthy Watkins and Bueckers might have become the most-watched Elite Eight game in history.

“Everybody’s talking about Paige,” said Aronowitz. “It’s not ‘Paige Bueckers.’ It’s just ‘Paige.’ When you get to that point where you are first name only, that’s when you know, wow, people are starting to pay attention. The story that comes along with her, all of the injuries, the playing through COVID and the resilience of this young woman, that’s a story that will get people to want to watch. So we are thrilled to have Paige in Tampa.”

(For fans of Watkins, Aronowitz said that ESPN’s women’s basketball group is going to make it a focus to document her return. Said Aronowitz: “We are going to document her journey to recovery, and we can’t wait till there’s a time where she’s got a spring in her step and she’s back out on the court and we get to be able to talk about her success and recovery.”)

As ESPN has seen more success with the women’s Final Four, the investment in technology increases. Aronowitz said this year’s Final Four will be in high dynamic range (HDR), a first for the women’s game. The production has 45 cameras in total, including more super slow-mo and high-frame-rate cameras than ever before.

These are all signs of growth. The interesting number for me will be how the Final Four and title game tracks not against 2023 but the 2022 title game, which we can call the “PTC Era” (Prior To Caitlin). That title game — a 64-49 South Carolina win over Bueckers and UConn — averaged 4.85 million viewers. At the time, it was the most-watched women’s title game since 2004, and the fourth-largest audience to watch a women’s championship game since 1996. The UConn-Stanford national semifinal in 2022 drew 3.23 million viewers, which was the most-watched women’s semifinal game in the PTC era since 2012.

These are the numbers to beat — and I think this Final Four and championship game will do it comfortably.

(Photo: Alika Jenner / Getty Images)

A German bodybuilder who starred in the Netflix series “Dogs of Berlin” died this week after reportedly having a heart attack while on the treadmill.

Vittorio “Vito” Pirbazari’s death was announced by his friend, Said Ibrahim, in an Instagram post.

Pirbazari had recently recovered from a torn pectoral muscle.

An Instagram page for a film the 44-year-old starred in also announced his death.

“The entire ‘HAPS’ team deeply mourns the loss of Vittorio Pirbazari. Our thoughts are with his family. We will keep you in loving memory – thank you for your warmth, your creative spirit and for being a part of our journey. R.I.P.,” the “Haps” Instagram page wrote.

The Instagram post featured a video montage of Pirbazari with a featured photo of him in black and white.

RED SOX INK TOP PROSPECT TO BIG EXTENSION AFTER JUST 5 MLB GAMES

Ibrahim wrote that Pirbazari had a heart attack while working out on the treadmill.

Pirbazari also starred in the “Hardgainer” series on YouTube, according to the German outlet Blid.

In writing about his recovery from his chest injury, Pirbazari said he was focusing on legs and cardio, and he would be taking it “slowly.”

“I haven’t been able to pull much exercise for the last 3 months,” he wrote.

“The important thing for me is only one thing, not to give up and let go and to get better day by day, week by week.”

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