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🏀 Good morning to everyone, but especially to …
CAITLIN CLARK (KINDA)
Caitlin Clark spent her college career rewriting the record books. Months into her WNBA career, she’s done the same. Clark dished out a league-record 19 assists to go along with 24 points and six rebounds. It was the Wings, though, who pulled out a 101-93 win thanks to an 8-0 run to finish the game. Arike Ogunbowale (24 points) hit an incredible fadeaway jumper with under a minute left, and Clark turned it over on the ensuing possession to essentially seal the game.
Still, it was a passing masterpiece from Clark, Jack Maloney writes. Clark scored or assisted on 66 Fever points, also a WNBA record.
Clark now not only has the most assists in a game in league history, but Indiana’s record of most assists in a season at 213. And she’s 12 assists behind Ticha Penicheiro‘s WNBA record for assists in a rookie season.
👍 Honorable mentions
👎 Not so honorable mentions
🏀 Team USA crushes Serbia in pre-Olympic showcase
After two inconsistent performances to open its pre-Olympic contests, Team USA laid the hammer down on reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and Serbia, 105-79.
Stephen Curry sank six 3-pointers and 24 points in all to lead the way while Bam Adebayo (17 points) and Anthony Edwards (16) provided boosts off the bench. Adebayo — who has never made more than two 3-pointers in an NBA game — made three from deep and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds. Perhaps most importantly, Team USA limited its turnovers (12) and defensive breakdowns, especially after an iffy first quarter.
Hey, turns out that when you can bring All-Star and All-NBA players off the bench, it makes a huge difference. And no one has shown that more than Anthony Davis (seven points, six rebounds, all six of Team USA’s blocks). Perhaps, given Joel Embiid‘s struggles, Davis shouldn’t be coming off the bench, Sam Quinn writes.
- Quinn: “His defense is the obvious driver of that case. FIBA’s slightly different rules have supercharged Davis on that end of the floor. With no defensive three-second rule, he’s free to protect the rim as aggressively as he wants. The lighter goaltending restrictions allow him to use his quickness, length, and leaping ability to play balls off the rim. … But there are offensive benefits to playing Davis with the starters as well. Embiid is the better offensive player in an NBA setting … [but] the more mobile and vertical Davis offers a dimension in pick-and-roll that Embiid doesn’t.”
On the other hand, the Davis-Adebayo makes playing offense a nightmare for opponents. Maybe Team USA wants to lean into that. Whatever the case, Wednesday’s win was really impressive and showed just how many options the Americans have.
⚾ MLB bold second-half predictions, latest rumors
MLB action returns from the All-Star hiatus tomorrow, and the next two and a half months will be a race to the finish. Four of the six division races are within five games, and two — the Orioles over the Yankees in the AL East and the Mariners over the Astros in the AL West — are separated by just a single game at the top. The wild card races are sure to go down to the wire, too.
Plus, with the trade deadline looming at the end of July, those involved in the playoff races could look very different in the coming days, and the rumor mill is hot.
So, what’s to come between now and the playoffs? Mike Axisa has 10 bold predictions for the second half, and when it comes to trades, Mike says …
- Axisa: “The Blue Jays will trade a cornerstone player — It feels like it’s time. The first half went about as poorly as possible for the Blue Jays, who are 44-52 overall and 9.5 games out of a wild-card spot with six teams ahead of them. … Would they actually trade a homegrown cornerstone player like Bo Bichette and/or Vladimir Guerrero Jr.? … We’ll say Guerrero stays and Bichette goes. Specifically, he’ll get traded to the Giants for erstwhile top prospect Marco Luciano and lefty Carson Whisenhunt, among others. San Francisco gets a needed shortstop and the big name it craves, and the Blue Jays shake things up and improve their young talent base.”
Remember when I said the wild card races will come down to the wire? Mike says they’ll do that … and then some.
🏀 Sun acquire Marina Mabrey in surprising midseason blockbuster
The Sun have the WNBA’s best scoring defense and its second-best record. Now, with the All-Star/Olympic break upcoming, Connecticut decided to upgrade its offense, too, acquiring Marina Mabrey from the Sky in a surprising in-season trade. Here are the full details:
- Sun get: Marina Mabrey, 2025 second-round pick
- Sky get: Moriah Jefferson, Rachel Banham, 2025 first-round pick, 2026 first-round pick swap
Mabrey has averaged double-digit points each of the last five seasons, including a career-high 15 per game last season powered by 39% 3-point shooting.
Connecticut has five double-digit scorers and three All-Stars in DeWanna Bonner, Brionna Jones and Alyssa Thomas, but the Sun rank near the bottom of the league in 3-pointers. In his trade grades, Jack Maloney gives the move a high mark.
It’s not a surprising trade given the obvious team need, but rather because of the timing. It’s the WNBA’s biggest midseason trade since 2015, when the Sky sent Sylvia Fowles to the Lynx. The Lynx went on to win it all; Connecticut is hoping for the same result.
🏈 NFL quarterback tiers: Major movement in top two tiers
Ah, yes, time for something everyone will surely agree on: NFL quarterback tiers. Will Brinson is back with his look at the league’s signal callers, and there’s an intra-divisional change in “Tier I: The Big Three.”
- Brinson: “Like last year, Patrick Mahomes could warrant his own category, a ‘One of One’ type of designation for the two-time reigning Super Bowl champ. I think Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are close enough to warrant being included. … Lamar’s second MVP last season should shut up all the foolish critics who didn’t think he belonged among the elite of the elite when it comes to QBs. Allen is now heading into the criticism cycle after another year of falling short of the Super Bowl. It’s hard to get there and it’s even harder when Mahomes/Andy Reid are busy ripping off a dynasty in your conference.”
Jackson replaced Joe Burrow, who fell to “Tier 2: Could Join Them Next Year” alongside two other exciting youngsters, both of whom made big leaps.
I think the toughest group to judge is “Tier 4: Intrigue with Question Marks,” really an eclectic mix:
- Trevor Lawrence
- Aaron Rodgers
- Tua Tagovailoa
- Anthony Richardson
- Will Levis
- Kyler Murray
In this group, you have three young guys with tons of physical upside in Lawrence, Richardson and Levis (who I think is probably a tier too high), two guys who have been really up and down in Tagovailoa and Murray and then … whatever Rodgers is. Is he still an MVP-caliber guy? Is he going to look like a 40-year-old who’s coming off an Achilles tear and skipped mandatory minicamp for no good reason? Something in between? We can safely grade this tier as one big shrug.
📺 What we’re watching Thursday
⛳ We’re watching The Open. Here’s how.
🏀 Grizzlies vs. Pelicans, 6 p.m. on NBA TV
🏀 Wizards vs. Kings, 7 p.m. on ESPN
🏀 Lakers vs. Cavaliers, 9 p.m. on ESPN
🏀 Timberwolves vs. Rockets, 11 p.m. on ESPN
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Author: Zachary Pereles
July 18, 2024 | 9:10 am
