The most patriotic athletes representing America in Paris are the members of the U.S. men’s basketball team. Unlike athletes in less-mainstream sports, NBA multimillionaires don’t need the exposure or endorsements that come with Olympic success. Instead of resting during their off-season, they’ve volunteered, dare I say, out of pride for country.
Meanwhile: Nobody wearing U.S. colors is under more pressure to bring home the gold than the NBA stars.
The old vet: If anyone could have been excused for sitting out these Olympics, it’s 39-year-old LeBron James.
Her: Caitlin Clark is the Taylor Swift of sports. For the impact she’s had on court, for the new, young audiences she’s attracted while dragging the WNBA out of the shadows and for the multimedia debates she’s generated. Seven months into 2024, Clark is America’s Sportsperson of the Year.
Slugging it out: You get the sense that baseball fans — especially young ones — think the actual All-Star Game is a sideshow to the Home Run Derby. In truth, one is as much a gaudy exhibition as the other.
Over the top: The media’s All-Star Game selection coverage is so melodramatic. Stories coming out of big-league towns inevitably insist that certain local players who didn’t make the team were “snubbed.” The dictionary definition of snub is “to treat with scorn, contempt, disdain …” That’s not what’s going on when there’s just not enough roster space for every good player to make the cut.
Net results: For someone so young, Carlos Alcaraz knows how to handle the big moments. It’s something great athletes are born with.
Fast-tracked: Novak Djokovic, who likes to think he’s persecuted, can’t complain about his route to the Wimbledon semis, which included a very weak draw and a quarterfinal walkover that allowed him three days’ rest.
Going backward: The ATP, which runs men’s tennis, is going back to pre-Covid protocols, allowing a player to ask for a towel from the ball kids rather than fetch it himself. The change is as unnecessary as it is unhygienic for the kids. The ATP wants to reduce the amount of time wasted during matches. But players can do something about that by not toweling off and otherwise dilly-dallying so often.
Whoa there: Cooper Flagg is a young man in a hurry, at 17 headed for Duke when he should be a senior in high school, then onto the NBA next year as the top pick. That’s the path laid out for him, especially after the way he played in a pre-Paris scrimmage against the U.S. team. But he’s 17. Can the media turn down the hype a little? Of course they can’t.
In NIL news: Arch Manning, the backup quarterback for the Texas Longhorns, reportedly received between $50,000 and $60,000 to promote a college football video game. Imagine how much he could have made if he were first-string. Or how little if he wasn’t a Manning.
Happy to stay: It surprises football people that Manning, behind Quinn Ewers for another year, hasn’t transferred. By the end of last season, nearly two-thirds of the top 20 quarterbacks for each of the 2019 through ’22 recruiting cycles were either in the portal or had already switched schools.
Trending: On June 13, the Yankees were in first place with the best record in baseball, while the Red Sox were 13 games behind them. After a bad spiral, New York dropped to second, behind the Orioles, and Boston was within 4½ games of the Yankees through Wednesday. And with so much summer yet to go.
As is: The meeting this week by the NCAA men’s basketball committee produced no news about the possible expansion of the Field of 68, a good thing. If it ain’t broke …
Bob Molinaro is a former Virginian-Pilot sports columnist. His Weekly Briefing runs Fridays in The Pilot and Daily Press. He can be reached at bob5molinaro@gmail.com and via Twitter@BobMolinaro.
