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🚨 Headlines
🏀 Historic comeback: The Thunder overcame the largest halftime deficit in NBA playoff history (26 points) to stun the Grizzlies, 114-108, and take a 3-0 series lead. Memphis led by as many as 29 points in the second quarter but fell apart after Ja Morant exited with a hip injury.
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🏒 Another OT victory: Simon Benoit scored on a slap shot to give the Maple Leafs their second straight overtime win over the Senators and a 3-0 lead in the “Battle of Ontario.”
💰 $7M jersey: Kobe Bryant’s first game-worn NBA jersey sold at Sotheby’s for $7 million, making it the second-most expensive piece of NBA memorabilia ever sold. The most expensive? Michael Jordan’s jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals ($10.1 million).
🏀 Mobley wins DPOY: Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley was named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, beating out Hawks guard Dyson Daniels and Warriors forward Draymond Green.
⛳️ Golf leaderboard: PGA Tour rookies Isaiah Salinda and Kevin Velo shot a tournament-record 58 (-14) at the Zurich Classic, the Tour’s lone team event; Haeran Ryu and Yan Liu (-7) are tied for the lead at the Chevron Championship, the season’s first LPGA major.
🏈 NFL Draft: Round 1 recap
(Yahoo Sports)
The 2025 NFL Draft began as expected, with Miami QB Cam Ward going No. 1 overall to the Titans. Then the Jaguars made the first big move of the night, trading up to No. 2 to select Colorado’s Travis Hunter, who they plan to use as both a wideout and cornerback.
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Draft notes: Seven of the first 12 picks were linemen (four offense, three defense), and only two QBs were selected (Ward and Jaxson Dart) a year after six were taken in the top 12.
Analysis:
Still available: In a scenario that appeared to be shaping up over the last few weeks, Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders went unselected. He’s one of the best available players entering Round 2, along with Marshall EDGE Mike Green (No. 11 on our Big Board) and Michigan CB Will Johnson (No. 13).
🧀 A beautiful sight: 205,000 fans flocked to Lambeau for the first-round festivities, which is almost double the population of Green Bay (~106,000).
🏀 The stat that predicts MVP winners
(Joseph Raines/Yahoo Sports)
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads all NBA players in LEBRON, a catch-all stat that measures a player’s impact — and tends to predict who wins MVP.
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LEBRON? The metric cooked up by BBall Index is named after King James with the help of a creative acronym: Luck-adjusted player Estimate using a Box prior Regularized ON-off.
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Put simply, it estimates how many points a player is worth per 100 possessions compared to league average, with average being zero. For reference: the top 25 this season (out of 565 players) ranged from SGA at 6.73 down to none other than LeBron at 2.27.
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LEBRON adjusts for a variety of factors to best reflect a player’s true on-court/off-court impact, including their roles on the team. For example: SGA is a “Star” (rotation role), “Shot Creator” (offensive archetype) and “Helper” (defensive role). Nikola Jokić, who ranked second, is a “Star,” “Post Scorer” and “Mobile Big.”
A telling metric: The league leader in LEBRON was named MVP in 13 of the past 15 seasons,* and all signs point to Gilgeous-Alexander making it 14 of the past 16 when the winner is revealed in the coming days.
*The two exceptions: Derrick Rose ranked 11th in LEBRON when he won the 2011 MVP (Chris Paul was No. 1), and Joel Embiid ranked fourth when he won the 2023 MVP (Jokić was No. 1).
⚽️ The Premier League’s expanding U.S. footprint
Burnley supporters celebrate their club’s promotion. (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
The Premier League is the world’s richest collection of soccer clubs, the crown jewel of English sports. Next season, a majority of its teams (11 of 20) will be owned by Americans.
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The newest members: Leeds United (owned by San Francisco-based 49ers Enterprises) and Burnley (owned by New York-based ALK Capital) have clinched promotion to the Premier League, where they’ll join nine other American-owned clubs: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool and Manchester United.
One more on the way? With two games left, nine Championship teams still have a chance to make the promotion playoff and earn the final Premier League spot. Four of those nine teams are also American-owned: Sheffield United, Millwall, West Brom and Swansea City.
Go deeper: The Americanization of English soccer (Yahoo Sports AM)
🏒 Welcome back, Cap
(Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
Gabriel Landeskog needed one glimpse of the homemade sign — “So proud of you, Daddy!” — to feel every mile of the 1,032-day journey back to the ice.
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Long road back: Colorado’s captain returned to the lineup for Game 3 on Wednesday — his first NHL action since June 26, 2022, when the Avalanche lifted the Stanley Cup. In the nearly three years since, it’s been mostly surgeries and rehab to treat his chronically injured right knee.
Emotional moment: Fans roared “Landy! Landy!” as the 32-year-old Swede took the ice for warm-ups, and the roof nearly came off Ball Arena when he was announced in the starting lineup. But for Landeskog, nothing topped seeing his children, Linnea and Luke, holding up that sign.
“That was as close as I got to losing it … when I looked over at that and [saw] their big, smiling faces. They’ve probably been thinking that I’ve been lying this whole time that I play hockey. They were 1 and 2 when I last played and now they’re 5 and 4. They’re growing up. We’ve got another one on the way. It just puts it in perspective how much time has passed. It’s very special.”
How’d he play? The Stars spoiled Landy’s return with a 2-1 overtime win, but he made an immediate impact with a team-best six hits. The Avalanche will have a chance to even the series tomorrow night in Denver.
📺 Watchlist: Hoops and hockey
Jalen Green takes flight in Houston’s Game 2 win. (Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images)
The NBA and NHL playoffs continue this weekend with six games tonight, eight games on Saturday and eight games on Sunday.
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More to watch:
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🏈 NFL Draft: Rounds 2-3 (Fri. 7pm, ABC/ESPN2); Rounds 4-7 (Sat. 12pm, ABC/ESPN)
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⛳️ Golf: LPGA’s Chevron Championship (Fri-Sun, ESPN+/Golf/NBC); PGA’s Zurich Classic (Fri-Sun, ESPN+/Golf/CBS); LIV Mexico (Fri-Sun, FS1/FS2)
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⚾️ MLB: Red Sox at Guardians (Fri. 7pm, Apple); Rangers at Giants (Fri. 10pm, Apple); Astros at Royals (Sat. 7pm, FS1); Phillies at Cubs (Sun. 7pm, ESPN)
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🍌 Baseball: Savannah Bananas vs. Party Animals (Sat. 7pm, ESPN2) … A sellout crowd is expected at Clemson’s 81,500-seat Memorial Stadium.
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🏁 NASCAR: Talladega (Sun. 3pm, Fox) … NASCAR’s biggest track (2.66 miles) is also its most chaotic, coming off a playoff race last season that featured a record 28-car crash.
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⚽️ Copa del Rey: Barcelona vs. Real Madrid (Sat. 4pm, ESPN+) … A victory over their rival club would move Barça one step closer to a rare treble.
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⚽️ FA Cup: Crystal Palace vs. Aston Villa (Sat. 12:15pm, ESPN+); Nottingham Forest vs. Manchester City (Sun. 11:30am, ESPN+) … Semifinals.
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⚽️ Women’s Champions League: Chelsea (1-4) vs. Barcelona (Sun. 9am, YouTube); Lyon (2-1) vs. Arsenal (Sun. 12pm, YouTube) … Semifinals, second leg.
Plus: 14 MLS games (Sat-Sun, Apple); Seven NWSL games (Fri-Sun, Prime/CBS/ION); UFL Week 5 (Fri-Sun, Fox/ESPN); Three PWHL games (Sat-Sun, YouTube).
🏈 NFL draft trivia
(Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Cam Ward is the seventh QB to be selected No. 1 overall in the past eight NFL drafts. Can you name the other six?
Hint: Five won the Heisman.
Answer at the bottom.
🏈 Get the Yahoo Sports app
(Yahoo Sports)
The Yahoo Sports app is your ultimate draft weekend companion — loaded with expert analysis, prospect breakdowns and a live discussion feed where you can debate every pick as it happens.
My favorite feature? Live Activities, for sure. Each pick will update in real-time on your lock screen, so you can stay in the loop without even opening your phone.
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Trivia answer: Baker Mayfield (2018), Kyler Murray (2019), Joe Burrow (2020), Trevor Lawrence (2021), Bryce Young (2023), Caleb Williams (2024)
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This news was originally published on this post .
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Getty Images FRISCO, Texas -- The cornerback position was one of the Dallas Cowboys' biggest remaining needs entering Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft. As a result, the team is selecting East Carolina cornerback Shavon Revel Jr. with the 76th overall pick in the third round to stop the fall for what might be a first-round talent. Revel totaled 17 passes defended and three interceptions in his last 15 college starts, but an ACL injury in practice following the Pirates' third game of the 2024 season ended his college career.The Cowboys likely felt comfortable drafting Revel because head team doctor Dr. Daniel E. Cooper did his surgery and sent a letter to NFL teams to tell them he was on pace to be fully cleared in the summer. He has great traits, standing at 6-foot-2 while weighing 194 pounds with a […]
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