Tahaad Pettiford withdraws from NBA draft, elects to return to Auburn
Tahaad Pettiford withdraws from NBA draft, elects to return to Auburn Great news! Auburn guard Tahaad Pettiford will return to the Plains for his sophomore season.
Auburn basketball's outlook for the 2025-26 season is clearer now that a key piece of last season's Final Four roster is set to return.
Tahaad Pettiford shared on Instagram Wednesday that he will return to Auburn for his sophomore season after testing the NBA draft waters. He averaged 11.6 points and 3.0 rebounds for the Tigers last season, primary in a bench role in relief of starting guard Denver Jones.
Pettiford entered NBA draft consideration last month after hinting at a possible return following Auburn's Final Four run. However, he made it clear that he would only leave Auburn if he received a first-round grade. Despite seeing his stock rise following the Final Four and his performance at the NBA draft combine, he felt that returning to the Plains would benefit his development.
"I was happy to go through the process, getting feedback from NBA teams," Pettiford said in an interview with ESPN. "Going back to Auburn is a better situation for me. I see myself being a higher pick next year. It wasn't 100% this year, so I didn't want to take that chance."
Before Pettiford announced his return, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said that he felt his squad would be much better with Pettiford on the floor.
"If he decides to come back to Auburn, we'll be a lot better team," Pearl said of Pettiford. "If he came back, there would be more on him. And I think he's looking forward to that possibility — that I'm going to ask him to do a little bit more, so he can show out a little bit more."
Pettiford is Auburn's only returning contributor from the 2025 Final Four squad, and will now see his role increased at the point guard position. He will join newcomers Keyshawn Hall, Keshawn Murphy, Filip Jovic, and Kevin Overton in Auburn's new-look starting five.
Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on X (Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Taylor on Twitter @TaylorJones__
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Can Small-Market NBA Finals Teams Punch Above Their Weight in the Ratings?
In the world of TV markets and sports ratings, the expression 'Bigger is better' usually applies. Yet after a pretty thrilling round of playoffs, the NBA Finals — a showdown between teams representing two of the smallest cities in the league — will put that assumption to the test. Tipping off Thursday, the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder both bring young superstars to the party, including recently anointed league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. But they also hail from Indianapolis and Oklahoma City, which rank No. 25 and 47, respectively, out of the more than 200 individually measured designated market areas (or DMAs) in the U.S., placing them among the bottom seven of the NBA's 30 teams. (Top-ranked New York, whose Knicks were just bounced from the playoffs, boasts a pair of franchises, as does No. 2 market Los Angeles.) Historically, major sporting events benefit from having larger-market teams squaring off, cashing in on the rooting interest in the home cities to boost the most recent examples, last year's World Series, pitting the New York Yankees against the L.A. Dodgers, delivered an average 15.8 million viewers, per Nielsen, Major League Baseball's most-watched Fall Classic since 2017, despite running only five games. That marked a 67% increase over 2023, the lowest-rated World Series ever, in which the Texas Rangers (considered part of the No. 4 Dallas-Fort Worth DMA) defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks (a.k.a. Phoenix, No. 12). Last year's NBA Finals, with the Boston Celtics edging the Dallas Mavericks, averaged 11.3 million viewers on ABC/ESPN, the league's worst performance since 2021. After a slow start, though, the NBA rebounded thanks to a slew of midseason trades, finishing just below overall regular-season results for the previous year. So are there any potential rays of hope for this year's matchup? one equalizer for any sports championship determined by a series (in the NBA and MLB's cases, a best-of-seven format) is for the contests to be competitive, with the series coming down to a Game 7 to determine the winner. Heading into the Finals, the playoffs have also put up solid results, up 3% overall, although that comes with a disclaimer: The Eastern Conference finals, featuring the Knicks, were up 10%, while the Western Conference (Oklahoma City vs. Minnesota) declined. Beyond the NBA and its TV partners (a roster that will shift, incidentally, with NBC taking a major package of games next season), several other entertainment players have a vested interest in the series, given that the NBA playoffs provide a platform to reach male viewers, especially, promoting blockbusters like 'Fantastic Four: First Steps' and 'Superman' heading into the summer movie season. Obviously, the interested parties can't make the host cities any bigger, but they can root for the series to be longer — and decided in the closing moments — in a way that might help a size-challenged Finals, to borrow from another sport, punch above its weight. Netflix's campy five-episode series 'Sirens' maintained its spot as Netflix's most-watched English-language show of the week with 18.2 million views during the week of May 26, up 9% from the 16.7 million it logged in its first four days on the platform last week. Meanwhile, buzzy U.K. crime series 'Adolescence,' which first debuted in March, finally surpassed 'Stranger Things 4' on Netflix's all-time most-popular TV English-language list, with 'Adolescence' standing in the No. 2 spot with 141.2 million views to date — behind just 'Wednesday' — while 'Stranger Things 4' ranks third with 140.7 million views. It's worth noting that viewers for 'Stranger Things 4' are likely to surge again ahead of the new season of 'Stranger Things' releasing this fall, as could views for 'Adolescence' given its potential Emmys buzz. The 2025 American Music Awards tacked on a considerable amount of delayed viewers to its original May 26 telecast, growing to reach over 10 million unique viewers across its CBS premiere, as well as encores on MTV, CMT and BET. After bringing in an initial live-plus-same-day viewership of 4.86 million, the Jennifer Lopez-hosted awards scored 5.2 million viewers after seven days of viewing, ranking as the show's biggest audience since 2019 and a 38% uptick from its last live telecast in 2022. Monday's finale of 'La Casa de los Famosos All-Stars' boosted Telemundo to rank as the most-watched primetime broadcast network, regardless of language, in the key demo among adults 18-49 as the network scored 559,000 viewers in that age bracket, according to Nielsen. The news comes as Telemundo celebrates its 14th consecutive week as the No. 1 most-watched Spanish-language broadcast network in weekday primetime among total viewers, as well as its third consecutive week winning the 18-49 demo. The post Can Small-Market NBA Finals Teams Punch Above Their Weight in the Ratings? appeared first on TheWrap.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
The Knicks fired coach ‘Thibs.' That's just wrong.
I know there are many bigger outrages in the world, but today I would like to share with you the frustration that gnaws at me as a fan of the New York Knicks following the firing on Tuesday of our gruff but beloved — and widely respected — head coach, Tom Thibodeau. 'Thibs,' as he is universally known to the Knickerbocker faithful, had just taken the team to its first Eastern Conference finals in a quarter-century. Sure, they lost to the Indiana Pacers in six games, and that was deeply disappointing — particularly after a historic Game 1 meltdown in which the Knicks somehow blew a 14-point lead with less than three minutes to go. But in the previous round, the Knicks had knocked off the defending champions, the Boston Celtics, and that was a result almost no one saw coming. (The Knicks had not beaten the Celtics once during the regular season.) The Knicks were on a good trajectory — and worlds removed from the chaos and mediocrity in which they had been mired when Thibs was hired in 2020. Since Jeff Van Gundy stepped down in 2002, the Knicks have had 13 head coaches. Only two of them have delivered winning records, and none could match Thibs's postseason success: He has taken them to the playoffs in four out of five seasons. This year's roster was the best Thibs ever had, anchored by two All-Stars: the clutch point guard Jalen Brunson and the sweet-shooting big man Karl-Anthony Towns. But Towns had been traded to New York just before the start of the season, while another key player, center Mitchell Robinson, was injured for most of the season. It often takes a team time to jell, and the Knicks appeared to find a new level in the playoffs. There was every reason to give Thibs an opportunity try to build on the Knicks' success next season. But no. After helping to turn Madison Square Garden once again into the mecca of the hardcourt, Thibs has been sent packing. The decision was said to be made by team president Leon Rose, but looming in the background is the Knicks' mercurial owner, James Dolan, who has been blamed by fans for their long years of suffering. To me, this seems to violate the fundamental compact of sports: You win and you get rewarded; you lose and you get punished. Thibs won — and he was punished just the same. Granted, he didn't 'win the chip,' short for championship. No Knicks team has since 1973, but they were heading in the right direction, with a talented roster and a veteran, skilled coach to lead them. Notably, Thibs appeared to have a rock-solid relationship with Brunson, the team captain. There were, of course, complaints about Thibs. There always are with any coach — or any human being, for that matter. He was often criticized for playing his starters too many minutes and wearing them down by playoff time. But, despite their heavy usage, all of the Knicks starters were healthy in the playoffs. Another complaint was that Thibs was inflexible in his rotations, that he stuck with his five starters no matter what, despite evidence that the starters were getting outscored when on the floor together. It's a legitimate criticism, but part of the problem was the lack of bench depth. Knicks management dealt away key role players to assemble a fearsome five led by Brunson and Towns. It would be instructive to see how Thibs would do next season if team president Rose, who has done a superb job so far of upgrading the roster, managed to restock the team with better role players. Now we will never know. Instead a new head coach will be tasked with meeting the high standards set by Thibs — which include back-to-back seasons with more than 50 wins for the first time since the Pat Riley era in the 1990s. Thibs's firing, unfortunately, is part of a bizarre trend in the NBA of getting rid of successful, experienced head coaches. Every winner of the NBA Coach of the Year award between 2018 and 2023 has been fired. That includes Thibs, who earned the honor with the Knicks in 2021. (He had previously won it in 2011 with the Chicago Bulls.) Even coaches who win the title aren't safe: Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel won in 2020 and was fired in 2022. Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer won in 2021 and was fired in 2023. Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone won in 2023 and was fired in April, before the end of the regular season. All three are now considered contenders for the Knicks job. The holy grail that all these teams are chasing is what the Golden State Warriors did in 2014: They fired a winning head coach, Mark Jackson, and replaced him with Steve Kerr, who went on to win even more: Kerr led the team to three titles. But for every Jackson-to-Kerr switch, there are plenty of changes such as the one when the Bulls got rid of Thibs in 2015 and replaced him with Fred Hoiberg. Thibs had a winning percentage of .647; Hoiberg, .426. I remain enthusiastic about a Knicks team that has become one of the best in the league. I just hope Rose and Dolan know what they are doing. Because what they have done to Thibodeau feels wrong. All will be forgiven if Thibs's successor brings home a title — but there will be hell to pay if the new coach squanders what he built.
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
NBA Star Chris Paul Offers Major Update on Playing Future
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The NBA offseason is just a few weeks away from starting, and there are expected to be a lot of moves taking place around the league. There are some notable free agents heading onto the market, and plenty of teams are expected to be very active. One of the bigger names on the market is veteran point guard Chris Paul. Paul is coming off a very successful season with the San Antonio Spurs that saw him suit up for all 82 games. Despite being 40 years old, Paul seems to be leaning toward returning to the NBA next season. But where he plays remains very much up in the air. While appearing on "The Pat McAfee Show", Paul discussed his upcoming free agency. The veteran guard hinted that he wanted to continue playing in the NBA and that his family would be helping in his decision on where to play. "I still love to play basketball and I'm in the gym every decision is about my family more than anything "I talked to my family about it. My son is 16. My daughter is 12. The past six seasons I have lived without them. I've been away from them the last six years. That's the conversation.", Paul said. "I still love to play basketball and I'm in the gym every day.. My decision is about my family more than anything"@CP3 #PMSLive — Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) June 5, 2025 This article will be updated...
