Sports briefs
By NewsPress Now
Derrick Rose, a No. 1 overall pick in 2008, announces retirement
Derrick Rose’s last act as an NBA player came in the form of a letter to the game of basketball, addressing the highs and lows that he experienced over a 16-year pro career.
And with that, his career ended on his terms.
Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft by his hometown Chicago Bulls and the league’s MVP in 2011, announced his retirement on Thursday. He was, and still is, the youngest MVP winner in NBA history, claiming that award when he was just 22.
“You believed in me through the highs and lows, my constant when everything else seemed uncertain,” Rose wrote as part of his letter to the game, serving as his retirement announcement. He posted the letter online, as well as taking out full-page newspaper advertisements in each of the cities where he played in his NBA years.
“You told me it’s okay to say goodbye, reassuring me that you’ll always be a part of me, no matter where life takes me,” he wrote.
Rose was the league’s rookie of the year in 2008-09 for the Bulls, was the league’s MVP two seasons later and was an All-Star selection in three of his first four seasons. A major knee injury during the 2012 playoffs forced him to miss almost two full seasons and he contemplated stepping away from the game several times following other injury issues, but always found ways to get back onto the floor.
Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf said Rose “represents the grit, resilience, and heart” of Chicago.
“He’s one of the toughest and most determined athletes I’ve ever been around, constantly fighting through adversity that would have broken most,” Reinsdorf said. “Watching him grow from a Chicago Public League star to becoming the youngest MVP in NBA history as a Bull has been nothing short of an honor.”
Besides the Bulls, Rose would also play for New York, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland and Memphis. He spent last season with the Grizzlies, returning to the city that he called home for his one season of college basketball.
He played in 24 games with the Grizzlies last season and when it ended Rose spoke at length about what a return to Memphis meant to him.
“It’s all full circle,” Rose said in April. “Coming back here, having my family here, my wife’s family is from here, being back in this arena, having some of the people that came to my college games actually come to my professional games here, it’s all love.”
Added the Grizzlies in a statement Thursday where they offered Rose congratulations on his career: “We are grateful for your meaningful contributions to this team and this city, and wish you all the best in this next chapter of life.”
Rose dealt with multiple knee surgeries over the years, took time away during the 2017-18 season to contemplate his future while dealing with ankle issues and sat out nearly two full seasons — after the knee injury in 2012 — when he should have been in his prime.
Rose averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists in 723 regular-season games. He averaged 21 points per game before the ACL tear 12 years ago, and 15.1 per game in the seasons that followed.
“With D-Rose, it was never a question of his talent,” Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, a former Rose teammate, said in 2018. “It was always about his health. And when he was healthy, everyone saw all the talent.”
Rose still flashed that MVP-level talent plenty of times over the years that followed the knee troubles. He had a career-high 50 points for Minnesota in a 128-125 win over Utah on Oct. 31, 2018 — a game that moved him to tears. He had a 12-assist game for Detroit in a 115-107 win over Houston on Dec. 14, 2019, his first such game in nearly eight years.
“I know the person that he is, the character that he has,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose in Chicago, Minnesota and New York, said in 2018 when he was leading the Timberwolves. “And it shines through.”
Rose was a serious candidate for the league’s sixth man of the year award in three straight seasons — 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 — and even got a first-place MVP vote again in that 2020-21 season, a decade after winning that award.
He announced his presence as a star quickly, winning the league’s skills challenge — as a rookie — at All-Star weekend in 2009, then winning rookie of the year and scoring 36 points in his playoff debut. It was a meteoric rise for someone who grew up amid poverty in a Chicago suburb, then saw basketball as an escape route and way to take care of his mother and family. In 2006, he hit a shot to win an Illinois state high school championship. Only five years later, he was MVP of the NBA.
“The kid from Englewood turned into a Chicago legend,” the Bulls posted on social media Thursday, along with a video of Rose’s highlights with the team.
LeBron and Bronny James are already scrimmaging
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. | LeBron James and his son, Bronny, are already scrimmaging with the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers during voluntary offseason workouts. JJ Redick and his coaching staff are planning and discussing the moment early in the new season when a father and son will share an NBA court for the first time.
While the specifics of that historic day aren’t set yet, Redick shares the basketball world’s anticipation of the chance to watch the top scorer in NBA history playing alongside the Lakers’ new second-round draft pick. No father and son have ever played in the NBA simultaneously, let alone on the same team.
“We don’t have anything planned, per se, in terms of a commitment to do it this way,” Redick said. “We obviously have talked about it as a staff, and we’ve gotten into some specifics of what that might look like, but we haven’t committed to anything, and obviously there’s a discussion to be had once we’re all together, with Bronny and LeBron, too. They should be a part of that discussion as well.”
Redick and general manager Rob Pelinka expressed excitement for the team-up Wednesday during a preseason news conference. Redick sees only positive aspects in pairing the duo on the court, and he doesn’t anticipate any friction or concerns in the family dynamic.
“I don’t look at it as a challenge that’s unique from any other challenge of coaching a player or coaching a relationship,” Redick said.
Pelinka then humorously interjected an anecdote from a recent workout scrimmage: “Maybe the challenge is on Bronny, when like in our pickup game, he got switched on to LeBron, and LeBron took him baseline, up and under off the glass. The words exchanged afterwards were probably more challenging than anything else.”
The Lakers haven’t announced or decided how long Bronny, who will turn 20 during training camp, will be on the NBA roster with his famous father, who turns 40 in December.
Although the front office hasn’t confirmed it, Bronny James seems likely to spend much of the upcoming season in the G League developing his skills. He played in only 25 games during his sole season at the University of Southern California after recovering from cardiac arrest during an offseason workout.
Pelinka and Redick are still extremely bullish on the 6-foot-2 Bronny’s ability to become an NBA contributor.
“Bronny, I feel very fortunate that I get to coach him, because he’s young and he’s hungry and he’s got a lot of inherent skill sets that we can really mold into a really good NBA player,” Redick said. “On top of that, he’s a fantastic kid. He’s extremely coachable. He’s got the right spirit and energy every single day.”
LeBron James took a vacation after leading the U.S. to a gold medal at the Paris Olympics, but he has been back in the gym for the past two weeks, Redick said.
The Lakers’ front office didn’t make any bold moves over the summer, constrained by their top players’ contracts and the new league system that has made it much more difficult to upgrade rosters, according to Pelinka.
So the Lakers roster around the James family will be largely the same group that made the Western Conference finals in 2023, but then finished eighth in the West last spring before losing to Denver in the first round. Those Lakers weren’t an elite team even with excellent health for LeBron and Anthony Davis, two high-mileage veterans who have struggled with major injury problems in previous seasons.
Pelinka said he would be open to moving his two tradeable first-round picks if he saw a deal that would lead “to sustainable Lakers excellence.” He would also move one pick for a “marginal upgrade, if we felt like it was the right thing to do.”
Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent and Jalen Hood-Schifino are healthy for training camp, but not everyone will be ready for workouts next week.
Christian Wood will be re-evaluated in six weeks after undergoing left knee surgery earlier this month.
Pelinka also revealed that Jarred Vanderbilt, the defense-minded wingman who played in only 29 games last season due to a foot injury, had successful “procedures” on both of his feet early in the offseason. The swingman is still recovering, but Pelinka said he is optimistic Vanderbilt will be ready to play by opening night on Oct. 22.
Former Bucks player Junior Bridgeman buys minority stake
MILWAUKEE | Junior Bridgeman played for the Milwaukee Bucks long enough to retire as the team leader in games played and performed well enough that his jersey hangs from the Fiserv Forum rafters.
Now the basketball player-turned-entrepreneur has purchased a stake in the team.
The Bucks announced Bridgeman’s purchase in a news conference that included co-owner Jimmy Haslam, coach Doc Rivers, general manager Jon Horst and most of the team’s current players. Bridgeman said after the news conference he has a 10% stake in the team.
“The opportunity to get back involved with the team in a different way and take advantage of it was something that was kind of a dream,” Bridgeman said.
Bridgeman’s 711 career games played for Milwaukee ranks him third in franchise history, behind only current Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. His No. 2 jersey was retired by the Bucks in 1988.
He now joins a Bucks ownership group that includes Haslam and his wife Dee, Wes Edens, Jamie Dinan and Mike Fascitelli. Haslam praised the move by citing Bridgeman’s longstanding connections to Milwaukee and his success as a player and businessman as well as his character.
“If you said, ‘All right, let’s find somebody to add as a partner,’ he’s No. 1,” Haslam said. “And I can’t think who would be No. 2.”
Bridgeman’s ties to Milwaukee go back half a century.
After the Los Angeles Lakers selected Bridgeman out of Louisville with the eighth pick in the 1975 draft, they sent him to Milwaukee as part of the blockbuster trade that brought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the West Coast.
Bridgeman, 71, played for the Bucks from 1975-84 and then spent two years with the Los Angeles Clippers before coming back to Milwaukee for his final NBA season in 1986-87. He ranks seventh in Bucks history in field goals made (4,142), ninth in points (9,892) and 10th in minutes (18,054).
Bridgeman has been even more successful off the floor.
After his playing career, Bridgeman began investing in restaurants and eventually became owner and CEO of Bridgeman Foods, which operated more than 450 Wendy’s and Chili’s restaurants in 20 states until 2016. He also has been an independent bottler for Coca-Cola. His family owns Ebony and Jet magazines.
Bridgeman’s success as a player and as a businessman made him attractive to NBA teams seeking people to purchase stakes in their team.
“I’d gotten at least three calls in the last three months from people wanting to know if (I’d) get involved with a team,” Bridgeman said. “I said, ‘I appreciate the opportunity, but no,’ because there’s no real connection. I know Boston’s for sale, and as many knock-down, drag-out battles as we had with Boston, I couldn’t see being an owner of the Boston Celtics, as great as they are. It had to mean more than just investing. It had to have some kind of heartfelt connection.”
The Bucks offered that connection.
“When you played here and you became a part of the Bucks organization, even when you left, you never felt like you were not a part of the organization,” Bridgeman said.
Bridgeman said he even had conversations with former Sen. Herb Kohl when he put the Bucks up for sale a decade ago.
“I talked to Sen. Kohl back then,” Bridgeman said. “It just didn’t feel right at that time. Now it does.”
Edens and Marc Lasry, both New York investment firm executives, bought the Bucks from Kohl for about $550 million in 2014 with pledges to keep the team in Milwaukee. Haslam bought Lasry’s 25% stake in the team last year.
Haslam said over the last year, a number of people who owned small percentages of the Bucks — a half-percent or 1% — wanted to tender their stocks. Those shares were purchased and then re-sold to Bridgeman.
Bridgeman hopes his new role helps him advise players on the right steps to take and the pitfalls they should avoid as they prepare for life after basketball. He’s had those types of discussions with players in the past.
“Nobody wants to see guys not be successful, or as successful as they could be,” Bridgeman said. “Maybe one day, they’ll be sitting up here, not being a 10% (owner) but buying the whole Milwaukee Bucks franchise. You never know.”
Ohtani’s 50-50 home run ball goes up for auction
RUNNEMEDE, N.J. | The baseball that Shohei Ohtani hit for his 50th home run, which gave him 50 homers and 50 stolen bases in the same season, is going up for auction on Friday.
Ohtani became the first player in Major League history in the 50-50 club. The Los Angeles Dodgers superstar accomplished the feat last week in Miami.
The fan who caught the milestone ball is working with Goldin, a New Jersey-based auction house specializing in trading cards, collectibles and memorabilia.
The opening bid for the ball is $500,000. There is black scuffing and abrasions on the white leather ball, which was authenticated by Major League Baseball.
Potential buyers will also have a chance to buy the ball outright for $4.5 million between Friday and Oct. 9. If bidding reaches $3 million before Oct. 9, the option to purchase the ball privately will no longer be available and buyers must bid for it. Extended bidding will begin on Oct. 16.
“Ohtani is truly one-of-a-kind, and the 50-50 record may be his crowning achievement,” said Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of the auction house. “This is a piece of baseball history that fans and historians around the world will remember for decades to come.”
UFC reaches $375
million settlement on one class-action lawsuit
LAS VEGAS | The UFC reached another settlement with one of the two class-action litigants, agreeing Thursday to pay the former fighters $375 million after a previous agreement was thrown out by a Nevada district judge.
Judge Richard Boulware in July dismissed a $335 million settlement with two antitrust lawsuits, including one brought by Cung Le. The new agreement by UFC parent company TKO Group Holdings is with Le, who filed his lawsuit in 2014, and the court still must approve the terms.
“While we believe the original settlement was fair — a sentiment that was also shared by Plaintiffs — we feel it is in the best interest of all parties to bring this litigation to a close,” the UFC said in a statement.
The UFC still has not reached an agreement with Kajan Johnson, who filed his in 2021. In a statement, the UFC called said that was “in very early stages, and a motion to dismiss the complaint remains pending.”
—From AP reports
