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The NCAA women’s Final Four is set. UConn will face South Carolina, and UCLA will take on Texas on Friday, starting at 7 p.m. ET. All four teams are No. 1 seeds. That hasn’t happened since 2018.
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Poison Ivey?
Bulls waive guard after Instagram rants
Jaden Ivey’s career has taken a pretty severe turn over the past 15 months. Last season, Ivey was starting to figure it out and shine in his third year. After not being much of a shooter in his first two seasons with the Pistons, Ivey was averaging 17.6 points on 46.0 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from 3-point range. But on Jan. 1, 2025, his season ended with a broken left fibula. He had surgery on his right knee before the 2025-26 campaign and didn’t return until a month into the season.
After a surprise trade to the Bulls at the deadline and more knee issues that had him questioning his own confidence (“I’m not the J.I. I used to be. The old J.I. is dead.”) was shut down for the season by his new team. That’s left him with quite a bit of time on his hands, and he’s used that time poorly. After several religious rants while going live on Instagram, Ivey started railing against Pride Month celebrations and the acceptance of the LGBTQ community.
“The world can proclaim LGBTQ, right?” Ivey told viewers via livestream on Monday morning. “They proclaim Pride Month. And the NBA, they proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say, ‘Come join us for Pride Month, to celebrate unrighteousness.’ They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness.”
Hours later, the Bulls waived him for “conduct detrimental to the team.” Considering the messages he conveyed and his spiraling career on the court, it’s fair to wonder if Ivey has played his last game in the NBA. That seems absurd for the talented, No. 5 pick in the 2022 draft. He just turned 24 in February. But the PR nightmare he just created — and not being healthy enough to prove his worth on the court — is going to make it difficult for him to play more NBA games.
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Ivey was set to enter restricted free agency this summer and now will be an unrestricted free agent if nobody claims him off waivers. Not many top-five picks get dropped from teams whilst on their four-year rookie deals. Here’s a trip down memory lane for some other recent examples!
- Jay Williams (second pick, 2002): He was released after two years because of a career-ending motorcycle accident.
- Nikoloz Tskitishvili (fifth pick, 2002): He wasn’t released, but the Nuggets declined his team option for a fourth season. He was then traded.
- Shaun Livingston (fourth pick, 2004): His free-agent rights were renounced after his fourth season due to a devastating knee injury. He played 11 more years.
- Thomas Robinson (fifth pick, 2012): The Blazers declined his team option for a fourth season. He was then traded and waived by Denver.
- Anthony Bennett (first pick, 2013): He was waived by the Wolves three years into his career. Minnesota was his second team.
- Mario Hezonja (fifth pick, 2015): His fourth-year option was declined by Orlando. He signed with the Knicks in free agency.
- Dragan Bender (fourth pick, 2016): His fourth-year option was declined by Phoenix. He signed with the Bucks in free agency.
- Josh Jackson (fourth pick, 2017): His fourth-year option was declined by Memphis. He signed with the Pistons in free agency.
Fix it!
The Hall of Fame is missing a key guy
For years, the James Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has made an egregious, recurring mistake. Former Milwaukee Bucks star Marques Johnson has been passed over time and time again for his accomplishments over an 11-year NBA career. On Saturday, we’re going to get the announcement for the 2026 Hall of Fame class, and the finalists create a pretty buzzworthy list.
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Blake Griffin, Doc Rivers, Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne, Amar’e Stoudemire, Mark Few and Joey Crawford have been named finalists, among many other deserving basketball legends. Johnson is the only member up for consideration from the veterans committee, and it should be embarrassing he needs to go that route to get in.
The criticism of the Basketball Hall of Fame is that too many people get in, so it would be easy to start cherry-picking some of their previous inductees and compare them against Johnson. But that’s not the case that needs to be made here, and it wouldn’t do justice to the career he had in his 11 seasons over 13 years. Instead, we should take a look at what he did at an elite level during his playing days and how he helped shape the league’s future.
Over his first nine seasons, Johnson averaged 20.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists while making 52 percent of his shots. He was selected as an All-Star five times. He was All-NBA First Team once and All-NBA Second Team two times. That doesn’t even take into account what he did at UCLA, helping lead the Bruins to the 1975 national championship and winning the 1977 Naismith Player of the Year, AP Player of the Year and the first Wooden Award. Remember, the HOF includes your college and professional endeavors.
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Johnson coined the term “point forward,” which was how Don Nelson used him during the playoffs for the Bucks in the 1980s. He was one of the innovators in NBA history.
There have been 32 players in NBA history with at least 13,000 points, 4,500 rebounds and 2,500 assists in their first 11 years in the league. Twenty-five of them are in the Hall of Fame. Six of the seven who aren’t enshrined are current players (Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and LeBron James) or just now eligible (Griffin this year). The remaining player? Johnson.
Unfortunately, his NBA career was cut short by a ruptured disk in his neck when he was on the LA Clippers. That put him in a contract dispute with infamous former Clippers owner and currently banned-for-life monster Donald Sterling. Sterling and the team stopped paying Johnson because they claimed he was disabled from the injury. A couple of years later, Johnson tried to come back with the Warriors, but it didn’t work out. He got buckets at the end of the 1980s playing pro basketball in Italy.
Yes, his career was cut short, but that’s never stopped the Hall of Fame from inducting people. Johnson is one of the more forgotten and underappreciated stars of the ’70s and ’80s. He’s been in movies like “White Men Can’t Jump” (he played Raymond) and “Blue Chips” (one of Pete Bell’s assistant coaches).
It will be a great celebration for those on Saturday who are announced as Hall of Famers. But if Marques Johnson is once again passed over, it will continue to show a flaw in the system of honoring the greats of this game’s history
The last 24
📖 Must-read. Speaking of the Hall of Fame, legendary coach Dick Motta is also a finalist this year. Our Jason Quick has an incredible profile of the 94-year-old, who says the HOF was never his goal.
🏀 Voting season. Fifth-place for MVP? Sixth Man of the Year? These are some of the questions giving our Fred Katz the most stress with his awards ballot.
📈 Power Rankings! Law Murray has a new contender in the mix. They’re in Believeland.
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☹️ Bad business? Mark Cuban still owns 27.7 percent of the Mavs. He says he regrets who he sold his majority to.
💸 No more Sun. Tilman Fertitta is purchasing the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun. He is moving them to Houston and bringing back the Comets.
🐜 Ant-Man returns. Anthony Edwards returned for the Wolves after a six-game absence. He has a new idea of how to play down the stretch.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
About Last Night
SGA drops 47 on the Pistons’ C team
Thunder 114, Pistons 110 (OT): The Pistons, without Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Beef Stew, Tobias Harris or Duncan Robinson, managed to take the Thunder to overtime. That’s pretty impressive, but it wasn’t enough with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropping 47 points. He was 12-of-19 from the field and 23-of-25 from the line. OKC (60-16) remains 2 1/2 games ahead of the Spurs.
Hawks 112, Celtics 102: Jayson Tatum sat, and Joe Mazzulla claimed he doesn’t like the Coach of the Year award. Maybe all that led to the Hawks (43-33) winning to keep pace with Toronto. Jalen Johnson had 20-12-5 on the night, and Jaylen Brown had 29.
Heat 119, 76ers 109: Miami finished the game on a 16-2 run. Tyler Herro scored eight of his 30 points in that spurt. The Heat (40-36) are now 1.5 games behind the Sixers for seventh in the East.
Let’s head down to the Dunk Tank!
- Suns 131, Grizzlies 105: Devin Booker had 36 points, and the Suns (42-33) are now three games ahead of the Clippers for seventh. Tank score for Memphis is 9/10.
- Spurs 129, Bulls 114: Victor Wembanyama had 41 points, 16 rebounds, four assists and three blocks to bury the Bulls. Tank score for Chicago is 8/10.
- Wolves 124, Mavs 94: Edwards showed up late for opening tip due to some bathroom happenings, so he couldn’t start in his return from injury. But he scored 17 off the bench, and Ayo Dosunmu had 18 points, 15 boards and 12 assists. Tank score for Dallas is 10/10.
- Cavs 122, Jazz 113: Donovan Mitchell had 34 points, and Evan Mobley had 34 points and 17 boards. Tank score for Utah is 7/10.
- Lakers 120, Wizards 101: No Luka Dončić (one-game suspension for technical fouls), no problem. LeBron James had 21 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds. Tank score for Washington is 9/10