LOS ANGELES: Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic was named NBA Most valuable Player for the third time in four seasons on Wednesday.
The 29-year-old Serbian star, who won the award in 2021 and 2022, finished runner-up in the voting in 2023 but had the satisfaction of leading the Nuggets to a first NBA title.
This season he averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and 9.0 assists in the regular season and beat out Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks in final voting for the award.
He became the second player, after Oscar Robertson, to record 2,000 points, 900 rebounds and 600 assists in a season.
His 25 triple-doubles and 68 double-doubles were both second in the league.
Jokic enters elite territory with a third MVP crown. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s six MVPs are the most ever. Bill Russell and Michael Jordan won five apiece and Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James four.
Jokic joins Moses Malone, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson as three-time winners after earning 79 first-placed votes compared to 15 for Gilgeous-Alexander and four for Doncic.
Behind Jokic, the 57-25 Nuggets matched the franchise high for victories in a season — although they were tied for best record in the West with Oklahoma City and ended up with the second seed.
Whether Jokic will be able to combine an MVP award and the title this season remains to be seen.
The Nuggets dropped the first two games of their Western Conference semifinal series to the Minnesota Timberwolves and face the tough task of trying to claw back on the Timberwolves’ home court starting on Friday.
Jokic’s victory marks the sixth straight season that the MVP award has gone to a player born outside the United States. The last US-born player to win was James Harden in 2018.
Nuggets’ Jokic scoops third NBA Most Valuable Player award
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Nuggets’ Jokic scoops third NBA Most Valuable Player award
- Jokic joins Moses Malone, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson as three-time winners
Top 100 pros confirmed for World Pool Championship in Jeddah
- A field of 128 players, including 28 wild cards, will take part in the event at the Green Halls from June 3-8
JEDDAH: The World Nineball Tour has confirmed the top 100 ranked players will play in the World Pool Championship in Saudi Arabia next week.
The event, the jewel in the WNT crown, will take place in the Green Halls, Jeddah, from June 3-8 in partnership with the Saudi Arabian Billiard & Snooker Federation and the Saudi Ministry of Sport.
Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, who maintains his No. 1 status in the rankings, will be joined by stars including Shane Van Boening, Fedor Gorst and Albin Ouschan.
“I am so happy to retain my No.1 ranking, especially as we head into this year’s World Pool Championship in Saudi Arabia,” Ruiz said.
“My goal is not only to maintain my top position on the World Nineball Tour, but also to defend my World Pool Championship title. I am determined to showcase my best game and emerge victorious once again on the world stage.”
The landmark event will see a field of 128 elite cueists battling it out in a double-elimination format for a record-breaking prize fund.
In addition to the top 100, the remaining 28 players will be made up of wildcard entries, 13 of whom will represent the host nation. Full details of the players representing Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries will be announced soon.
Emily Frazer, CEO of organizers Matchroom Multi Sport, said: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has hosted the world’s premier sporting spectacles of late and we are thrilled to be staging the prestigious World Pool Championships in Jeddah. Now the world’s top 100 are all signed up, this tournament truly will live up to the hype. The fans are in for a real treat and you will not want to miss it.
“We are hugely grateful to both the SABSF and the Ministry of Sport for their incredible vision and invaluable support in making this elite event a reality.”
SABSF President Dr. Nasser Saab Al-Shammari added: “We could not be more excited to host the World Pool Championship, an incredible international event steeped in history and prestige with a huge global following. Welcoming the world’s greatest players for the crown jewel of the World Nineball Tour is an occasion that will certainly be embraced and enjoyed by a Saudi population whose affiliation with this sport dates back many decades. The opportunity to work alongside both Matchroom Sport and our Ministry of Sport in staging this spectacle is a genuine privilege.”
Strike threat over football calendar with players at ‘breaking point’
LONDON: Players could strike in their bid to cut down on the number of matches they play, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association warned FIFA.
Football’s world governing body is under growing pressure to address the workload of elite players, with threats of legal action.
The PFA wants action to alter the congested football calendar, especially with the expanded 32-team Club World Cup proposed for next summer.
An event Thursday in London by the PFA and FIFPRO, the international players’ union, heard that players were at “breaking point.”
PFA chief executive Maheta Molango recalled a recent conversation he had with players of an unnamed club.
“How far would you like to go?” Molango recounted asking the players, according to the BBC.
“Some of them said: ‘I’m not having it, we may as well strike.’
“Some said: ‘What’s the point? Yes, I’m a millionaire, but I don’t even have time to spend the money.’“
Molango added: “We have reached a point where we cannot discount any action.”
FIFA was already facing the threat of legal action if there is no rescheduling of the 2025 Club World Cup.
A letter recently sent to FIFA president Gianni Infantino by the World Leagues’ Association and FIFPRO said football’s worldwide schedule was now “beyond saturation.”
FIFA in response said it would guarantee player welfare with its “harmonious” scheduling.
The football schedule will expand once more next season, with the Champions League and Europa League having eight first-phase games compared to six this term.
The Champions League, Europa League and UEFA Conference League will all be increased to 36 teams.
Doncic’s 36 points spur Mavs back to NBA Finals with 124-103 toppling of Timberwolves in Game 5
- Kyrie Irving also scored 36 points for the Mavericks, who built a 29-point halftime lead on 61 percent shooting to deflate the once-energized crowd before most fans got up for their first snack break
- The Mavs, who had the fifth seed in the West, have a full week to rest before the NBA Finals begin in Boston on June 6 for the franchise’s first appearance since winning the championship in 2011
MINNEAPOLIS: Luka Doncic had a 20-point first quarter on his way to 36 points for his high this postseason, and the Dallas Mavericks beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 124-103 on Thursday night to breeze through the Western Conference finals in five games.
“He let his teammates know that it’s time and they’ve got to take it up a notch,” coach Jason Kidd said. “He sent the invites out, and they all came.”
Kyrie Irving also scored 36 points for the Mavericks, who built a 29-point halftime lead on 61 percent shooting to deflate the once-energized crowd before most fans got up for their first snack break. The Mavs went up by 36 in the third quarter, consistently keeping the Timberwolves offense all out of whack.
The Mavs, who had the fifth seed in the West, have a full week to rest before the NBA Finals begin in Boston on June 6 for the franchise’s first appearance since winning the championship in 2011 when Kidd was playing for them. The Celtics will have had 10 days between games after sweeping Indiana in the Eastern Conference finals.
Anthony Edwards scored 28 points and Karl-Anthony Towns had 28 points and 12 rebounds for the third-seeded Wolves, who met their match with the defense-smashing duo of Doncic and Irving after stifling Phoenix in a first-round sweep and then dethroning defending champion Denver in a seven-game series.
“We never clicked all together as a team in this series, not even one game,” Edwards said. “The last two series, we were all clicking at one time, making shots and stuff. It wasn’t clicking at one time here.”
Irving improved to 15-1 in his career in closeout games in the playoffs.
Doncic set a defiant tone by starting 4 for 4, hitting rainbows from 28 and 31 feet as he turned to talk trash to the courtside fans with each swish, often with a sly smile. He drained a 32-footer later in a first quarter as the Mavs closed on a 17-1 spurt, a run they pushed to 28-5 over a nine-minute stretch.’
“I thought I set a good-enough screen, and I turned around and he’s shooting from half court,” center Daniel Gafford said.
This was Doncic’s second 20-point quarter in his postseason career, following a 21-point fourth quarter in the Western Conference finals loss to Golden State in 2022. He was voted the MVP of the series.
Doncic, who shot 14 for 22 and grabbed 10 rebounds, and his savvy sidekick Irving, who has a championship ring from 2016 with Cleveland, were the superior stars in this series as this Wolves team found its first taste of a sustained postseason run to be a bitter — but perhaps ultimately beneficial — one.
Though he familiarly and persistently waved his arms at the officials almost every time a whistle didn’t go his way, the 25-year-old Doncic played with an unshakeable confidence and unflappable joy from start to finish. As he was taunted by the fans with a “Flopper!” chant when he shot free throws in the third quarter, Doncic smiled and mockingly mouthed the words along with them.
The Mavs got 7-foot-1 rookie Dereck Lively II back from the sprained neck that kept him out of the previous game, restoring the complete rim protection duo with Gafford that helped them disrupt Rudy Gobert in the post and just about everyone else who tried to attack the basket. Gafford had 11 points and nine rebounds, and Lively added nine points and eight rebounds.
Edwards, though he hit the 25-point mark for the 15th time in 27 career playoff games, had trouble finding his rhythm amid all the double-teams. The Wolves, for all their progress this season, were reminded they don’t yet have a championship offense despite his dynamic skills and clutch mentality.
They had several wince-inducing possessions in the decisive first half, with the coaches struggling to find a group that could play in sync together.
As the final seconds of the second quarter ticked away, Edwards drove to the lane and kicked the ball to the corner to Kyle Anderson, who swung it back to Towns on the wing and failed to find a look he liked. He passed back to Anderson, who tried to move closer and had the shot clock expire on him.
P.J. Washington, who had 12 points, flexed his arms in celebration of yet another stifling defensive sequence by the Mavs.
“We missed a lot of easy stuff, went 1-on-1 too early, just got kind of busted out of any offensive structure,” coach Chris Finch said.
Cricket in uncharted territory as T20 World Cup starts in Texas
- A month-long festival of the fastest, most explosive form of the sport begins with the US taking on Canada in Dallas on Saturday
- It marks the opening skirmish of the first ever major International Cricket Council event to be held in the US and the West Indies
DALLAS: Cricket ventures into uncharted territory on Saturday as the first ever major tournament to be staged in the United States gets under way in Texas with the opening game of the T20 World Cup.
A month-long festival of the fastest and most explosive form of the sport — which is being shared between venues in Texas, Florida, New York and the Caribbean — begins with the US taking on Canada at the Grand Prairie Stadium on the outskirts of Dallas on Saturday.
It marks the opening skirmish of the first ever major International Cricket Council (ICC) event to be held in part in the United States.
While the bulk of the tournament will be played out in the Caribbean, 16 group stage games in the 20-team tournament will be played on American soil, including the highlight of the group stage — a clash between India and Pakistan due to be played in Long Island, New York.
The rest of the tournament will be held in the West Indies, including the Super Eight stage, the semifinals and the final, which will be played at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.
While cricket is widely played at a recreational level in the United States, with strong presences in all three of the states that have been chosen for games, organizers are realistic about the chances of “converting” mainstream American sports fans.
Instead, they expect that the large immigrant communities from cricket-loving backgrounds, including thousands of India fans in particular, will pack the stadiums.
“I think, number one, we want to celebrate those that are already fanatical lovers of cricket. They deserve to see the best players in the world come into their backyard and have that chance,” T20 World Cup USA, Inc. chief executive Brett Jones told AFP.
“Number two, I think it’s about spiking curiosity in the game,” he said.
The ICC also sees the tournament as a launch pad toward the sport’s return to the Olympics for Los Angeles 2028, when the T20 format will be used.
Major League Cricket, a T20 tournament, was launched last year and also stands to benefit from any growth in interest in the big-hitting, spectacular shortest form.
But it is not only the American market that the ICC is focused upon — the expansion of the tournament has opened up opportunities for newer cricket nations to compete on the big stage.
In recent years, the sport has been able to expand outside of its traditional strongholds with Ireland and Afghanistan earning places in the 12-strong elite with full Test status.
But the ICC see the T20 format as the perfect vehicle for growing the game and this year’s edition will feature three T20 World Cup debutants in the USA, Canada and Uganda.
Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Oman are among the other nations who are relatively new to the big stage and who will be looking to make their mark and grab some attention with an upset win.
With the teams drawn in four groups of five teams, with just the top two advancing, none of the smaller nations are expected to progress beyond the group stage and there is a danger the pool stage could mainly be a ‘weeding out’ process.
India, winners of the first edition in 2007, are the favorites, with their line-up packed with players from the annual Indian Premier League.
Australia, winners of the ODI World Cup last year along with the World Test Championship, opted to leave out their veteran batsman Steve Smith but big-hitting David Warner and pacemen Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins provide plenty of experience.
Other possible contenders include defending champions England, who will be without the star of their 2022 triumph Ben Stokes, who is managing his fitness after a knee operation. England warmed up for the tournament with a seven-wicket rout of Pakistan in London on Thursday.
Co-hosts West Indies won the tournament in 2012 and 2016 and are hoping that they can benefit from familiarity with the surfaces in the region.
South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan will all fancy their chances of making an impact in a tournament which always produces surprises.
Yuka Saso survives brutal starts of US Women’s Open that sent Korda to an 80
- Saso: I made really good putts. I think I was more lucky than playing good
- The wind was swirling at some of the higher points on the course, and the greens were firm and bouncy, just how the USGA likes it
LANCASTER, Pennsylvania: Former champion Yuka Saso leaned on her putter to survive a brutally tough start to the US Women’s Open on Thursday, an opening round that featured Nelly Korda making a 10 on her third hole and only four players barely beating par.
Saso had three big par putts to start the back nine at Lancaster Country Club, rolled in two medium-length birdie putts toward the end of her round and finished with three putts from the collar of the 18th green for bogey and a 2-under 68.
It felt even lower than that considering all the carnage around her. The leading 10 players from the women’s world ranking had an average score of 75.5 — including Korda’s 80 — and only two-time major champion Minjee Lee was not over par.
“It’s a US Open. It’s a major. It’s the biggest major championship, and I think it’s one of the most difficult weeks that we’ll play,” Saso said. “I don’t tell myself to be confident or anything like that.”
Saso, who seized on a Lexi Thompson meltdown in 2021 to win the Women’s Open at Olympic Club, led by one shot over Andrea Lee, Wichanee Meechai of Thailand and recently crowned NCAA champion Adela Cernousek of France.
Cernousek, a junior at Texas A&M, had company among amateurs. Three of them were in the group at even-par 70 — US Women’s Amateur champion Megan Schofill, Catherine Park and 15-year-old Asterisk Talley, who is coming off her first USGA title at the US Women’s Amateur Four-ball Championship.
Lee, who picked up her second major in the Women’s Open at Pine Needles two years ago, holed out from 15 feet just off the green at the par-3 17th to get back to even par.
“Just come back and try and beat the course again,” she said.
The rest of the LPGA Tour’s biggest stars took a beating, none as bad or as shocking as Korda. The No. 1 player in women’s golf, Korda arrived at Lancaster having won six of her last seven tournaments. Three holes into her opening round, she was sent reeling.
Korda hit from a back bunker into a stream on the par-3 12th hole, and then pitched into the stream from the other side twice on her way to a 10. She added four bogeys over the next 15 holes and signed for an 80, matching her highest round as a professional.
“Not a lot of positive thoughts, honestly,” Korda said. “I just didn’t play well today. I didn’t hit it good. I found myself in the rough a lot. Making a 10 on a par 3 will definitely not do you any good at a US Open.
“Yeah,” she concluded, “just a bad day at the office.”
It was a bad day for so many others. Rose Zhang, who ended Korda’s five-tournament winning streak three weeks ago in New Jersey, looked to be shellshocked when she walked off the 18th green with yet another three-putt bogey and a 79.
Lydia Ko and Brooke Henderson each shot 80. The average score for the field was 75.2.
The wind was swirling at some of the higher points on the course, and the greens were firm and bouncy, just how the USGA likes it. The 156-player field produced just over 900 scores of bogey or worse — in Korda’s case, a septuple bogey.
Thompson, likely playing in her final US Women’s Open after announcing she will no longer play a full schedule after this year, started her back nine by going from bunker to bunker to bunker to thick rough and taking triple bogey. She shot 78.
Saso picked up 5.7 shots on the field with her putter, and it carried her to the lead.
“I made really good putts. I think I was more lucky than playing good,” Saso said.
She has a shot at a peculiar slice of victory this week if she were to win and become the only Women’s Open champion to play under two flags.
Saso won as a Filipino at the Olympic Club and the following year — before turning 21 — declared her citizenship to be Japan (her father is Japanese). A big week could also thrust her into position to get back to the Olympics under a different flag.
That feels like a long way off, especially after such a hard day of work.
“There’s so much golf left,” Saso said. “The golf course is very difficult and the conditions are very tough, especially with the wind with it swirling and when it’s blowing 15 mph with the firm greens and fast greens.”
It didn’t seem to hurt the amateur, particularly Cernousek. She dropped only two shots, one of them on a three-putt from 40 feet on the 14th hole, and held her nerve to break par. She was amazed seeing her name on every scoreboard.
“I was like, ‘Wow!’ I was watching every leaderboard on the course,” she said.
Talley is one of two 15-year-olds in the field at Lancaster and played well above her years with smart decisions when she got out of position. Her one gaffe came on the par-5 seventh hole when she only advanced her second shot about 50 yards out of the thick rough, laid up and then put it in the water fronting the green. She made a triple bogey.
But Talley — her mother says Asterisk is Greek for “Little Star” — followed with a nine-hole stretch of three birdies and six pars, not dropping another shot until the 17th,
“I feel like I could have done a lot better today, but I’m not mad at all about my round,” Talley said. “I was hearing everybody even par is a good round today. I wish I could have been a couple under par.”
