NBA

The NBA announced on Friday the 75 players that will participate in the 2025 Draft Combine, which will take place in Chicago from May 11-18.

The NBA G League Elite Camp will also take place from May 9-11, while the NBA Draft Lottery will be held on May 12, making early May an extremely important period in the pre-draft process for teams.

For many prospects, the combine is the chance to impress teams, especially during the scrimmage portion of the event. Generally speaking, however, the combine is more about interviews and meetings for the very top prospects—this year, that includes Duke's Cooper Flagg, Rutgers' Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey and Baylor's V.J. Edgecombe, among others—than it is about the testing or scrimmages.

Flagg is the overwhelming favorite to be the top overall selection, with the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets each holding 14 percent odds to obtain the No. 1 pick.

The New Orleans Pelicans (12.5 percent), Philadelphia 76ers (10.5 percent), Brooklyn Nets (9 percent), Toronto Raptors (7.5 percent), San Antonio Spurs (6 percent), Houston Rockets (3.8 percent, via Phoenix), Portland Trail Blazers (3.7 percent), Dallas Mavericks (1.8 percent), Chicago Bulls (1.7 percent), Sacramento Kings (0.8 percent) and Spurs (0.7 percent, via Atlanta) round out the draft lottery.

The 2025 NBA draft will be held in Brooklyn on June 25-26.

LeBron James says it's not his job to convince Luka Dončić to sign an extension with the Los Angeles Lakers this summer.

"No, that ain't my job," James told ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "I think ... I don't think, I know, Luka knows how I feel about him. And ultimately, that trade happened for the future. That's not for me. Luka has to decide what he has to do with his future. He's [26] years old, I'm 40, so he can't be basing his career off me. That's just real.

"But I hope, obviously, [he stays long term]. Laker fans f---ing love him here. L.A. has accepted him. We love him as a teammate, as a brother. But ultimately, he's got to make a decision for him. S---, I ain't going to be around much longer."

James has yet to make a decision regarding his 2025-26 player option. Dončić, who has his own player option for the 2026-27 season, will be eligible to sign a four-year extension in August.

The Athletic's Jovan Buha and Sam Amick reported Friday that Dončić is "widely expected" to sign an extension with the Lakers "at some point."

"According to team sources, the Lakers will be amenable to whatever contract structure Dončić desires," Buha and Amick wrote.

Dončić could sign a four-year, $229 million extension starting Aug. 2. He could also sign a three-year, $165 million deal and set himself up for a five-year, $418 million contract in 2028, per ESPN's Bobby Marks.

Should Dončić not sign an extension, the Lakers would still have an advantage over other teams when he becomes a free agent in 2026. The Lakers could ink Dončić to a five-year, $296 million deal, while other teams can't give him more than a four-year, $219 million contract, per Marks.

But the Lakers could lose a major bargaining chip if James leaves the franchise or retires from the NBA by that point.

James said after the Lakers' season-ending Game 5 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday that he didn't "have an answer" as to how much longer he would keep playing.

James, who turned 40 in December, averaged 24.4 points per game in a historically dominant 22nd NBA season. No player has ever returned for a 23rd campaign in the league.

To earn Dončić's long-term commitment to the franchise amid the uncertain future of the NBA's all-time leading scorer, general manager Rob Pelinka and the Lakers may need to convince Dončić that the franchise has a long-term plan in place to contend in the post-James era.

The Memphis Grizzlies have their new head coach.

They announced Friday that interim coach Tuomas Iisalo is being installed as the full-time head coach after he replaced Taylor Jenkins, whom they fired in late March.

"I have full confidence in Tuomas serving as head coach of the Grizzlies going forward," team president and general manager Zach Kleiman said in a statement. "Tuomas' teams at every level have been disciplined, tenacious and connected on both ends of the floor, consistently exceeding expectations. We look forward to the same in Memphis."

Under Iisalo, the Grizzlies went 4-5 to close the regular season before being swept by the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. Ja Morant's series-ending hip contusion in Game 3 didn't help the team's cause.

Overall, the Grizzlies finished the regular season 48-34, reaching the playoffs for the fourth time in the past five years.

Memphis has a solid core group in Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr., though the trio hasn't quite been able to get over the hump. Some roster tweaking could be in order this offseason, but Morant gave Iisalo a vote of confidence heading into the summer:

The timing of Jenkins' firing—after establishing himself the winningest coach in franchise history—was quite surprising, though Memphis' front office may have always had an Iisalo succession plan in place. As The Athletic's William Guillory noted in early April, the organization "paid a lucrative buyout to lure Iisalo from Paris Basketball of LNB Élite" and also "forced Jenkins to fire several assistants he worked with for years ahead of the 2024-25 season to make room for Iisalo and several others tasked with reshaping the Grizzlies’ offensive attack."

The Grizzlies had also lost eight of 11 games at the time of Jenkins' firing.

Now, Iisalo will have to prove that the immense faith the franchise has put in him—from his expensive hiring as an assistant to his interim tag and now the full-time position as head coach—was justified.

Luka Dončić's pregame routine includes taking three half-court shots, with some incentives baked into the practice—if he makes one of them, the Los Angeles Lakers' assistants out on the court do pushups, per ESPN's Dave McMenamin, but if he misses all three he does the pushups or body squats himself.

McMenamin continued:

"It's a small example of Dončić seeking comfort and routine in a season void of either. But it was a response to the whispers about him coming out of the trade—a commitment to squeezing in extra conditioning after joining the Lakers with a strained left calf that sidelined him for five-and-a-half weeks, sources told ESPN.

"His game-day routine starts at 9 a.m. with bodywork, shots, weightlifting and a cold tub plunge, sources said. Maintaining his pregame routine, fun though it is, was a sign, one source said, of Dončić recognizing the sooner he got back to peak form with his new team, the sooner the Lakers could reach their full potential."

The report follows JJ Redick's comments after the Lakers' five-game series loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round, when he seemed to cryptically call out Dončić's conditioning, which, of course, was also reportedly one of the issues the Dallas Mavericks had with Dončić before trading him.

"I'll start with the offseason and the work that's required in an offseason to be in championship shape," L.A.'s head coach told reporters Thursday. "And we have a ways to go as a roster. And certainly, there are individuals that were in phenomenal shape. There's certainly other ones that could have been in better shape. That's where my mind goes immediately is we have to get in championship shape."

The Lakers didn't get worked by the Wolves solely because of Dončić's conditioning, of course. This was a roster initially built around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the Lakers simply didn't have the time to build it around Dončić's skill set after acquiring him ahead of the trade deadline.

The Lakers, lacking an impact center, got killed in the paint by the Wolves. Expect them to aggressively pursue a rim-running, rim-protecting center this summer, much as they did when they traded for Mark Williams before cancelling the deal over his physical.

Adding more 3-and-D wings would help as well. Players like Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Dorian Finney-Smith are solid pieces around James and Dončić, but the Lakers didn't have much quality depth beyond that group.

It will be an offseason of change in Los Angeles. The Lakers will hope that includes Dončić improving his offseason conditioning program.

Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo and his wife Mariah Antetokounmpo are celebrating the birth of their fourth child.

The Antetokounmpos welcomed their daughter Aria Capri with a Thursday post on Instagram.

Giannis and Mariah married last summer in Greece, according to People's Skyler Caruso and Julia Moore. Former Bucks forward Khris Middleton served as best man.

The couple previously welcomed two sons, Maverick Shai and Liam Charles, along with a daughter, Eva Brooke.

Giannis announced his wife's latest pregnancy after the Bucks' NBA Cup win in December.

Mariah posted photos featuring herself and Giannis with their children after the Bucks were eliminated from the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs on Tuesday night with a Game 5 defeat by the Indiana Pacers.

"Look at this life you created... You m͏ake us proud every single͏ day," Mariah wrote in the caption of her Instagram post, which was signed: "Your Team."

LeBron James suffered a left knee injury after colliding with the Minnesota Timberwolves' Donte Dincenzo during the Los Angeles Lakers' season-ending Game 5 loss on Wednesday, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin.

The injury is a Grade 2 MCL sprain with an anticipated recovery time of between three and five weeks, per McMenamin.

The collision occurred with just under nine minutes left in the fourth quarter. James briefly left the court but returned to finish out the 103-96 loss.

McMenamin reported that James, who has never missed a playoff game due to injury, would not have been available for Game 6 had the Lakers been able to extend the series.

Instead, Anthony Edwards and the Wolves closed out the series tohand the Lakers the team's second consecutive first-round exit.

The Lakers have multiple key questions to answer this offseason, including whether Luka Dončić will sign a four-year extension and commit long-term to Los Angeles and if James will take his player option for the 2025-26 season.

ESPN's Shams Charania said Thursday on the Pat McAfee Show that there is "no expectation" James will retire this summer, but the Lakers star said he didn't have an answer when asked how long he would play after this season.

"Just continuing to play, I don't know where I'm at," James told McMenamin. "That's what that is. Not coming back to play here. Just playing, period."

Dončić is also dealing with a potential injury after taking contact from DiVincenzo in Game 5. He told reporters after the game that his back was "not good at all but I tried to go."

The Lakers will hope to have James and Dončić both healthy and signed in time for next season as the franchise looks to make a deep playoff run for the first time since 2023.

In the aftermath of the Los Angeles Lakers' 103-96 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves that ended their season, one of the big stories coming out of Game 5 was how much Wolves center Rudy Gobert dominated them.

ESPN's Dave McMenamin quoted one Lakers team source as saying "Gobert looked like Shaq" against them.

Gobert set playoff career-highs with 27 points and 24 rebounds. His nine offensive rebounds were his second-most in a playoff game and one more the Lakers had as a team.

The 27 points for Gobert were 13 more than he had in the first four games combined. It also marked his first 20-point playoff game since June 2021.

Shaquille O'Neal had 15 playoff games with at least 20 points and 20 rebounds, 12 of which came during his eight seasons with the Lakers.

One of the big concerns for the Lakers going into the postseason was their lack of size and a true starting center. Jaxson Hayes had some nice moments down the stretch in the regular season catching lobs from Luka Dončić, but his track record didn't suggest that he'd make a big impact in the playoffs.

Sure enough, Lakers head coach JJ Redick didn't trust Hayes. He played fewer than 10 minutes in each of the first four games against the Timberwolves and didn't make an appearance in Game 5.

The Lakers' lack of size in the paint stood out over the course of the series. It was especially felt in the deciding game when Gobert was able to do whatever he wanted against them.

After the Game 5 loss, LeBron James answered a question about the difficulty of playing without a center by saying, "My guy AD said what he needed, and he was gone the following week" in his postgame press conference.

This was in reference to Anthony Davis saying in January that he felt like the Lakers would "need another big" to reach their full potential. He was traded to the Dallas Mavericks for Dončić not long after that comment.

Finding a center does figure to be a high priority for Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka this summer as the team tries to assemble a championship-caliber roster for the 2025-26 season.