
Report: G Marcus Smart agrees to buyout with Wizards, plans to join Lakers
A three-time first-team all-defense selection, Smart will reportedly ink a two-year, $11 million deal with the Lakers after clearing waivers. The new contract will include a player option that could allow the guard to enter free agency in 2026.
According to ESPN, Lakers All-Star Luka Doncic contacted Smart and expressed his desire to play with the two-way player, who averaged a career-low 20 minutes per game last season, a campaign that was hampered by an injury to a finger on his right shooting hand.
Smart was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies prior to the 2023-24 season and played in 19 games before he was again moved to the Wizards (15 games) in February. He averaged 9.0 points and 3.2 assists overall.
While injuries have limited Smart to a combined 54 games over the past two seasons, he has proven his value throughout his career. While with the Boston Celtics, Smart was part of postseason-qualifying teams in each of his first nine seasons in the NBA, including when he helped Boston reach the NBA Finals in 2022, the year in which Smart was named Defensive Player of the Year.
Since joining the NBA as the No. 6 overall pick in 2014, Smart has averaged 10.6 points on 38.8 percent shooting, including a 32.4 percent clip from 3-point range. Of course, he is mostly known for his defense, as demonstrated by a career average of 1.6 steals per game. He is six steals away from having 1,000 for his career.
Per ESPN, the Lakers plan to waive guard Shake Milton to free up a roster spot for Smart.
--Field Level Media
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The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
WNBA truths and fictions: the real state of the league in 2025
The WNBA is one of those leagues that is perpetually at the crossroads. In the 1990s, the league saw off the challenge of the American Basketball League (ABL), which paid higher salaries but lacked the NBA's marketing muscle, but perhaps that victory gave the NBA and WNBA a dose of complacency. Attendance steadily dropped for several years, and went through revolving doors from city to city – or into permanent hiatus. Now, with women's sports in the middle of a growth spurt and the dazzling skills of Caitlin Clark on display, the WNBA has an age-old issue: More money, more problems – or, at least, more critics conjuring up more questions. We live in a media landscape in which the fretting over 'generational talents' is so robust that NBA fans started panicking about Cooper Flagg when he had a poor shooting performance in his first Summer League game. As anyone knows from following her college career, she doesn't just have extraordinary shooting range. She can dominate a game with her passing even if her shots aren't falling. To be sure, Clark certainly has a lot of work to do before she turns the corner from being the league's most exciting player to becoming the league's best player. In her rookie year, Basketball Reference calculated her PER, a measure of overall effectiveness, at 18.8, nowhere near the top four of A'ja Wilson (34.9), Breanna Stewart (26.4), Brittney Griner (26.0) and Napheesa Collier (25.1). But PER tends to favor forwards and centers – such Clark's Indiana teammate, 2023 top overall draft pick Aliyah Boston, who was also ahead of Clark. Among guards, she was third. She also led the league in assists per game with 8.4, with only Alyssa Thomas (7.9) anywhere close. On the other hand, she also led the league in turnovers with a staggering mark of 5.6 per game – Thomas again was second at 3.6. This year, Clark is struggling with injuries, and most of her scoring and shooting numbers have dropped significantly. Given the ridiculously short window of a WNBA season, she may not have time to pull her season averages up to where they were last year. The WNBA actually has a trio of young 'generational talent' guards who have come into the league in the 2020s. The first was Sabrina Ionescu, a record-smashing triple-double machine from Oregon who had a slow, injury-riddled start to her pro career but has since made the All-WNBA second team three straight years – and surely had a case to make the first team ahead of Clark last year. The next is Paige Bueckers, who is putting together a rookie season almost on par with Clark's season last year. In a year or two, depending on when she declares for the draft, the WNBA will add USC's JuJu Watkins. In the media and player All-Star voting, the leader was Bueckers' teammate in Dallas, Allisha Gray. Funny how they don't seem to be held responsible for the Wings being in last place, and yet critics harp on Clark because Indiana isn't dominating. So the fans got it wrong in ranking Clark first and Ionescu fifth. But the players' votes were harsh on stars (Clark) and Olympians (Jackie Young was 12th; Kelsey Plum a bewildering 16th). For once, the media may have gotten it right, ranking her third. Truth or fiction: Truth In a recent anonymous survey of WNBA by the Athletic, a majority of respondents said Clark will be the face of the WNBA in five years. But it was a slim majority of 53.8%. Watkins was second, Bueckers was third. Next was the first non-guard, Clark nemesis Angel Reese, and A'ja Wilson, who was merely the MVP of the WNBA (for the third time) and the Olympics in 2024. And yet the WNBA is headed toward its highest average attendance ever (see below), propelled somewhat by Clark but also by the fervor behind the expansion Golden State Valkyries. While ratings certainly drop when she's out injured, they don't fall through the floor. Perhaps the fact that Clark has not immediately established herself as the best player in the league has made people realize that veterans like Wilson, Stewart, Griner, Collier and Ionescu know how to play some ball, too. Truth or fiction: Fiction In the cartoon Futurama, a female computer is horrified to learn that the men who have landed on an all-women's planet made fun of women's basketball. 'What??! Did you explain how the women's good fundamentals make up for their inability to dunk?' roars the computer, voiced by Bea Arthur. The men scoffed at the concept. But WNBA players' fundamentals are indeed pretty good, most notably free throws – the NBA's highest overall percentage of the past 10 years (78.4%, 2023-24) trails behind the WNBA's lowest (78.5%, 2024, down from 80.0% the year before and 80.8% in 2021). The WNBA is also more of a passing league than the NBA, which sees its stars shine in one-on-one isolations. In 2024, 68.6% of field goals in WNBA play were the result of assists. In the NBA last season, the number was 63.6%. In the NBA, you may see Anthony Edwards explode past a defender for a dunk. In the WNBA, you may see Caitlin Clark whip a pass through a seam mere mortals wouldn't have anticipated. True basketball fans appreciate both, and the US has a lot of true basketball fans. Truth or fiction: Fiction WNBA officials have had their share of detractors this year, among them standout players Angel Reese (Chicago) and Kelsey Plum (Los Angeles), coaches Natalie Nakase (Golden State) and Stephanie White (Indiana). The latter's criticism followed a game against the Connecticut Sun in which Clark was poked in the eye in the third quarter, and Clark's assailant was fouled near the end of the game with the outcome not in doubt, prompting a scuffle that saw three people ejected. White's complaint was a familiar refrain: 'The referees lost control of the game.' Did they? The eye poke on Clark drew a flagrant foul on Connecticut's Jacy Sheldon, while Clark and two Connecticut players got technical fouls for the ensuing fracas. In the last minute, Sheldon drove into Indiana's Sophie Cunningham, who pulled Sheldon down onto the floor. Cunningham could argue that Sheldon initiated the contact by lowering her shoulder and charging into her like a running back or rugby player, and that she accidentally pulled down Sheldon while stumbling backwards. But she and the Fever have embraced the notion that Cunningham filled the role of an NHL enforcer, protecting their star player when the refs wouldn't. Cunningham's jersey sales went through the roof, and entrepreneurs are selling commemorative T-shirts in her honor. Maybe the WNBA has found a new source of revenue? WNBA refs are paid far less than their NBA counterparts, so no one should be surprised if the men's league attracts more experienced referees. But the refs aren't the ones escalating things even after the flagrant and technical fouls have been called. And NBA refs aren't exactly above reproach. Even if we toss out the aberration of Tim Donaghy, the referee who spent time in prison after a gambling scandal, NBA referees have been the object of many fine-worthy infractions through the years. Anthony Edwards' fines in a single season could pay several WNBA players' salaries. Should WNBA refs do more to protect stars like Clark so that Cunningham won't feel compelled to do it herself? Maybe. But they'd also do well to avoid the absurdity of the 1990s, when the mere act of trying to guard Michael Jordan could draw a whistle. Truth or fiction: Mixed That's not the easiest set of questions, and it's just part of the league's to-do list right now. The WNBA has to manage expansion carefully while also landing a fair collective bargaining agreement to prevent a work stoppage. But these are also happier questions to consider than 'Will the league survive the season?'


Daily Mirror
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
PGA Tour star issues statement on wife as he chases after £1.1m payday
Max Homa is in contention at the 3M Open as he looks to end a difficult season on a high, with the American revealing he is desperate to win in order to be with his wife for the birth of their second child Max Homa is determined to pocket the £1.1million prize from the 3M Open, motivated by his wife's impending due date. The 34-year-old golfer wrapped up the first round of the event with a score of 5-under. He's currently six shots behind leader Adam Svensson but remains in the hunt for his first PGA Tour victory since the Farmers Insurance Open in 2023. Despite a season that has seen him slip to 105th in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), Homa 's focus is less on his form and more on ensuring he's back in time for the arrival of his second child. On Thursday, Homa shared that his wife, Lacey, is due in a fortnight, confessing that his drive to clinch the 3M Open – which would swell his career earnings past £31m – is fuelled by his desire to be by her side. "I need to win. I really need to win [because] my wife's pregnant and I need to go home," Homa disclosed during a press conference on Thursday. "We have like two weeks left. So it's a little extra stressful. "But I think the only way that you can go out and win a golf tournament is by not exactly trying to win the golf tournament," reports the Mirror US. Despite a challenging season, Homa did deliver an outstanding display at the John Deere Classic earlier this month where he secured a joint-fifth finish with a 16-under total. At the 3M Open, he's going head-to-head with close friend Rickie Fowler, who holds a slight advantage after carding 6-under in the opening round. Discussing his prospects for victory in Minnesota, Homa revealed: "I know what I need to do. I need to play unbelievable. So fortunately, my games felt awesome the last month or so. "I don't know how you just make yourself win. I'm just trying to kind of keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens on a Sunday." Despite the looming deadline of his wife's pregnancy, Homa is set to compete at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro next week. He disclosed that his wife had encouraged him to continue playing but confessed to the mental torment he experienced after realising he'd missed two calls from her when checking his phone. He continued: "My wife told me to play. Yeah, just every day I finish a day of golf, I look at my phone and see if I'm flying home, so, we'll see. It's a good problem to have. "Dude, I'm freaking out. I'm ready to have the baby and then get settled. I know it'll be chaos, but I want to make sure I'm there." Homa also spoke to GolfWeek about who he believes ranks above others when it comes to celebrity golf. The fairways are no strangers to sports legends and A-listers alike, with NBA greats Steph Curry and Charles Barkley known for their love of the greens. Even Wrexham's co-owner Rob McElhenney enjoys a swing or two, and Homa, chummy with the 'Always Sunny' mastermind, has dished out his thoughts. When pressed for his pick of the best, Homa confessed: "I mean, Aaron [Rodgers] is really good. I've never played with Steph. He's impressive. "On the spot I'm blanking. I know there is more. But somebody who is really good, Alfonso Ribeiro is a phenomenal golfer."


Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce finally go 'Instagram official' with 13 sweet snaps
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