Chicago Sports

Does Kyle Hendricks miss the way things used to be with the Cubs?

Does he ever get sad thinking about all those good teams and great teammates far — and forever — gone?

Cue an image of “the Professor” crying in a $12 Wrigley Field beer.

“Yeah,” he said. “I get sad sometimes. But I think it’s natural.”

Hendricks has had a lot of time to think since last season’s trade deadline, when he — like Cubs fans everywhere — was left numb by the sudden, if expected, departures of Anthony Rizzo, Javy Baez and Kris Bryant, among others. And don’t let the righthander’s expressionless demeanor on the mound fool you; his emotions about the whole thing have run the gamut.

“At first,” he said, “there was some emptiness. It was there immediately, but it took some time to set in fully. It was just such a shock, just ripping the bandaid right off and all of it happening in 24 hours.”

Hendricks carried it around for a while, and it’s not hard to draw lines from that to his 2021 performance. In May, June and July, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball — right up there with his 2016 self — going 12-1 with a 2.89 ERA over 17 starts, 14 of them quality starts. After the deadline purge, though, came the worst two-month statistical stretch of his career.

Coincidence? You decide.

Better yet, let your old pal Dr. Know-It-All decide: No chance it was a coincidence. With all that air let out of the Cubs’ balloon, the last two months of the season was a funeral procession. Have you ever tried locating a changeup during a funeral procession?

“At the time,” he said, “you wanted to keep playing with them forever.”

Ten months later, Hendricks, 32, is able to easily discuss the shifts that have occurred in the National League Central over his nearly eight years in the big leagues. Early on, the Cardinals had all the juice. Then the Cubs took over. The Brewers rose up and became a worthy challenger before surpassing the Cubs.

Now, with a homestand against those division rivals, things are starkly different. The Brewers are in charge. The Cardinals are their only challenger. Hendricks — who’s under contract through the 2023 season, with a $16 million club option for 2024 — sees the changing tides as being “good for baseball.”

“Being around more and more shows me how lucky we were to have those good times, you know?” he said. “For me to show up and, really, [the winning] to come a year later — to happen so fast — it makes me feel so lucky. I mean, it’s amazing. To get to have that success and win with those guys, it was just such an exciting time and so much fun.

“It’s good to at least look back and have those memories, right? None of it could have happened. Imagine if it didn’t happen. But it did happen. I was really lucky for a large part of my career to be winning and be at the top.”

Seeing Hendricks in a clubhouse full of relative strangers today takes one back to when he arrived on the scene in 2014. Remember his first start? Some of you might. It was July 10, 2014 in Cincinnati, and not long after Hendricks’ work was done, he was charging out of the dugout with his new teammates because — what the heck? — Rizzo had thrown down his first baseman’s glove and challenged the Reds to get down.

“I was like, ‘Really? Is that typical up here?’ ” Hendricks said.

There isn’t one of us — let’s be honest — who ever would have envisioned the stoic, soft-tossing Hendricks going on to make three Opening Day and 11 postseason starts, to dominate a pennant clincher at Wrigley Field, to come through in Game 7 of the World Series.

No, he hasn’t blown up into a superstar since 2016. So what? Just look at him. He’s still more than meets the eye.

And once in a while, he still gets to live in the past. Like when he catches up with Jon Lester, which never fails to make him laugh.

“He actually has friends,” Hendricks said when asked if Lester has disappeared into the wilderness and grown a giant beard in retirement. “But he has no idea what to do before 5 o’clock.”

Yes, Hendricks misses what was. But that’s over and done with. He’s OK with what is.

“I went to high school and played with some best friends for three, four years,” he said. “I went to college and played with some best friends for three, four years.

“Here, I played with some best friends for seven years, eight years, you know? That’s a long, long time in the game of baseball. To be able to have that? I think I’ll feel lucky for the rest of my life.”

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When Marcus Stroman takes the mound for the Cubs, notice his varied deliveries to throw off hitters’ timing and the energy he emanates as he’s constantly moving.

Then look down at his cleats and examine them a little closer. They could be a range of colors — white, gray, tan, teal, royal blue — but notice the logo on the shoe’s tongue, a circle with a horizontal line in the center.

Soon, it won’t only be on Stroman’s cleats and gear.

“I truly want to make it the next boutique luxury brand for athletes on and off the field,” Stroman said of SHUGO, which started out as his own brand of cleat. “So on the field you’re getting luxury leather, luxury materials on your cleat, on your sneakers. And then away from the field, you’re also getting high-end streetwear, high-end clothing, cut-to-sew pieces, clothing that will rival any high-end brand out there.”

That’s Stroman, a man with big ideas on and off the field. But he also has shown a knack for turning vision into reality.

SHUGO originally was a cleat designed for and worn by only Stroman. But this year, SHUGO is scheduled for its first public release. Though the exact date has yet to be determined, it likely will be this fall.

Athletes partner with established brands to create their own signature shoes all the time, but creating a shoe and company from scratch is much rarer. Big Baller Brand is the most notable recent example, and its tumultuous story infamously includes NBA guards Lonzo and LaMelo Ball leaving the family business.

Baseball doesn’t have the same hold on the shoe industry as basketball. Active MLB players with signature shoes include Mike Trout (Nike), Bryce Harper (Under Armour) and Francisco Lindor (New Balance).

“There’s not a lot of other shoes out there that are signature in baseball,” said Erik Hernandez, a designer at Studio Noyes, which works with SHUGO as well as more established brands. “So for Marcus to do his own, let alone offer up the opportunity to have other players at his same level be a part of SHUGO in the future, is a major thing to disrupt what’s going on with the typical three main players in Nike, Adidas and Under Armour.”

If there was an athlete built to make that kind of splash, it was Stroman, a pitcher who often talks about being underestimated throughout his baseball career because of his size.

“Anything I do away from the field is usually something that I do passionately,” Stroman said. “It’s not like I’m going into it trying to make it a worldwide business. I just want to spread the message and chase a passion that I like, whether it be clothes, whether it be spreading the message of being undersized, breaking through barriers. I’m just trying to incorporate everything that’s built me as a person.”

Stroman already has built an apparel company from scratch.

HDMH grew out of a saying — height doesn’t measure heart — that the 6-7 Stroman had been using through college.

Then, a decade ago, Stroman wanted to trademark the phrase. He put up a website.

“It was a type of deal where he and his buddies walked into a T-shirt print shop and were like, ‘Hey, man, here’s my slogan. I need a logo. Let’s print some T-shirts,’ ” said HDMH director of operations Adam Abdat, who is also Stroman’s brother-in-law.”And literally, his logo was just an HDMH [block] text with a tape measure shaped as a heart around the HDMH.”

A few years later, Stroman asked his mother and sister to help him grow the business, and Abdat joined them.

“We all had a hand in printing labels, packing boxes, all that stuff — running to the post office,” Abdat said. “It was really all hands on deck in the beginning.”

For Abdat, it’s wild looking back on that period. They have employees for all that now. But the company has remained family run, which Stroman brings up with pride.

The brand now works with Stroman’s foundation of the same name. And they’re branching out into new spaces, including uniforms for teams ranging from the Cape Cod League to Little League.

“It’s good to be with a company that has someone at the top that just keeps wanting to break barriers, no limits,” Abdat said. “If it makes sense, then let’s do it. If I have unique ideas, let’s try it, let’s see how it works, let’s get some samples, let’s do some testing.”

That’s how their uniform venture started. Abdat pitched the idea, and now he estimates they’ve worked with 60-plus teams.

The brand, however, clearly means more to its most loyal fans than just clothing.

A teammate of Stroman’s, rookie reliever Ethan Roberts, has had the HDMH logo tattooed on his arm since 2018, years before they met in spring training this year.

“I’ve followed him forever,” Roberts said this spring. “He’s giving me pointers and tips and tricks and this and that. We talk pretty much every day. I mean, heck, he gave me some cleats. Like, how cool is that?”

Stroman envisions HDMH and SHUGO coexisting, filling different niches.

“The identity of them is very, very different,” Stroman said.

HDMH is a motivational brand. SHUGO resides in the luxury sphere.

“I’m working on this always,” Stroman said, “whether it be the next wave of clothing that we’re dropping, designs, what kind of colorways we’re trying to launch for the fall. I’m very in tune with it, and I love it. I’m creative at heart.”

In Studio Noyes’ first meeting with Stroman, Hernandez was struck by how aspirational Stroman’s vision was.

“It was really interesting to hear Marcus talk about it, because it wasn’t just, ‘I want my own shoe.’ He wanted his own everything,” Hernandez said. “In the end, he wanted to do something better that worked for him well.”

SHUGO’s story starts with Stroman’s split with the Jordan Brand, a Nike subsidiary. According to Stroman, Jordan told him he couldn’t maintain their partnership and have his own apparel company.

“So I just left them cold-heartedly,” Stroman said, “and that day I started working on SHUGO and HDMH fully.”

Nike did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But in January 2018, soon after Stroman announced the end of his partnership with Jordan on Twitter, a Jordan spokesperson told the Toronto Star, “While Marcus was a member of the Jordan Brand family, he wasn’t under contract. Beyond that, we don’t disclose specific terms of agreements with Jordan Brand athletes.”

In developing his own cleats, Stroman leaned heavily on the advice he’d heard from doctors and trainers whom he worked with during his rehab from surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament in 2015. (Always balancing multiple endeavors, Stroman returned to Duke during his rehab to finish his degree.)

“I designed it from an engineering standpoint for my ACL,” Stroman said. “So the cleats are great. They’re designed first and foremost for your body. And then it’s aesthetically after that.”

Stroman picked up a SHUGO cleat and bent it at the middle to show off its flexibility, more like a running shoe than a typical cleat. Developing the shoe for an individual first gave Stroman and Studio Noyes the freedom to break the mold.

After a hands-on testing process, the cleats were ready to debut a couple years after that initial meeting late in 2018, a timeline affected by the pandemic.

“I knew that it was going to perform,” Stroman said. “But definitely a little nerve-racking wearing your own cleat model out there for the first time.”

Now SHUGO is set to be on a third model by 2023.

“I’m excited where this has gone,” Stroman said. “Because this is all my ideas just kind of dumped into it. I’ve invested all my own time and money into it. I haven’t taken on any investors or anything yet. So I’m excited where it has grown.”

The name SHUGO draws from an array of inspirations, fitting for the brand of an athlete with so many disparate projects and interests — fashion, wine, podcasting, writing a children’s book.

SHUGO is a play on the word for sauce in Italian and protector/guardian in Japanese. It’s also Stroman’s dog’s name.

“It’s just a word that I loved,” he said, “how it sounded, how it flowed, how it looked. And just got a trademark when I fell in love with the word.”

SHUGO’s initial launch this year will start with limited editions of the cleat model Stroman wore last year in three colorways.

“That’ll be a high-end model,” said Samantha Noyes, owner of Studio Noyes, “a little bit more exclusive just to kick things off.”

At the same time, they plan to release a lifestyle trainer with similar color stories and an apparel line. In the spring, SHUGO expects to make a mass-market version of the cleats available.

By next year, Stroman hopes to bring five to seven baseball players, spanning the major and minor leagues, into the fold, making them SHUGO athletes.

After that, who’s to say? When Stroman says he’s constantly working on SHUGO, he isn’t exaggerating. At any given moment, the Studio Noyes group chat might light up with a photo of inspiration from Stroman.

As Abdat said, Stroman isn’t one to set limits.

“I’ve always been someone who’s trying to maximize it in life,” Stroman said. “I just want to do it all while I’m here. I don’t take any day for granted. And I truly want to chase all my passions and interests fully. And I feel like I have the energy to do it all.”

The next time Stroman takes the mound, take a look at his cleats. Because they’re not just a fashion statement or tool of the trade. They’re part of a larger vision.

“I truly feel like I can build a lot of things creatively,” Stroman said, “that can take off in this world.”

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Curtis Granderson’s role on TBS’ MLB coverage brings him back to his childhood. Growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago, Granderson wasn’t a Cubs or White Sox fan. He liked the Braves, whose games were available on superstation TBS.

When Granderson would come home from school, all he wanted to do was watch “Saved by the Bell,” which aired on WGN. But the show would be preempted if the Cubs were playing a day game. It frustrated him to no end.

“I was like, Why are the Cubs playing these day games? Everyone else plays night games. I’m trying to watch my show,” Granderson said. “Then at night on the superstation, here come the Braves, and they’re dominating, and I’m like, I like this team.”

Now Granderson, who played for seven teams in a 16-year MLB career, is a studio analyst for TBS’ Tuesday night games. He’ll be on the pre- and postgame shows next week with fellow analysts Pedro Martinez and Jimmy Rollins and host Lauren Shehadi for the Sox’ game against the Dodgers. Brian Anderson and Ron Darling will call the game on TBS, whose broadcast will be available in Chicago.

Granderson, 41, appeared on TBS’ postseason coverage before the network bought its new package. Turner Sports has a history of assembling quality casts, from its highly acclaimed “Inside the NBA” to its new “NHL on TNT.” Its MLB crew has clicked, as well, and Granderson said that starts at the top.

“Everybody that puts the show together, the consistent message is be yourself,” Granderson said. “Nothing is scripted. If we’re supposed to talk about the White Sox and all of the sudden the conversation shifts, that’s not wrong. That makes everybody at ease. That allows everybody to flow and go, and that’s the chemistry you see on TV.”

Granderson grew up in Lynwood — his parents still live there — and went to Thornton Fractional South High School in Lansing. He was back home two weeks ago to throw out the first pitch at Lynwood Little League’s Opening Day. When he played there in the late 1980s, Granderson said the league had almost 200 kids. He said in the mid-2010s, it fell to about 30 across all levels.

“So collectively we’ve been doing a ton of different things from the schools to the community,” Granderson said. “This year it was exciting. We had 97 kids signed up. So it’s starting to come back, which is great to see.”

Despite his baseball prowess, Granderson thought he was a better basketball player after high school. He chose to attend UIC because, in addition to giving him a baseball scholarship, the school gave him a chance to play basketball. Unfortunately for him, he was behind two of the best guards in UIC history. Cedrick Banks is the school’s all-time leading scorer, and Martell Bailey led the nation in assists in 2003.

“The chances of me getting on the court were very slim,” Granderson said.

They went to zero when Granderson broke his thumb in baseball practice the day after his tryout with coach Jimmy Collins. Once he recovered, Granderson locked into baseball, particularly after his sophomore year when he played in Mankato, Minnesota, in the Northwoods League. His play caught the attention of players from across the country.

“I’m on a team with kids from UCLA, Baylor, USC, the quote-unquote big schools of baseball,” Granderson said. “And these kids are telling me, You should transfer, you should play with us, how come you’re at UIC? I built the confidence, like, Wow, I can hang with these guys.”

Major-league scouts began coming to see Granderson during his junior year, and the Tigers drafted him in the third round in 2002. He still graduated in 2003 from the College of Business Administration. He has given back to UIC, donating $5 million in 2013 to help fund the construction of Curtis Granderson Stadium on campus.

For all of his community work, Granderson — who lives in University Village — will be recognized before the Mets-Cubs game July 15 at Wrigley Field as part of MLB’s City Connect program. Granderson played for the Mets from 2014 to ’17 and helped them sweep the Cubs in the 2015 National League Championship Series.

“A lot of my friends that were in the stands were cheering for me but wearing Cubs gear,” Granderson said. “And then they ended up winning the World Series the next year. So I didn’t continue the curse. They can’t hold that against me.”

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After the Fire’s 3-2 loss Saturday to Toronto FC, coach Ezra Hendrickson bemoaned individual errors and officiating decisions that contributed to the defeat. He also stressed that, if the Fire fix their individual mistakes, they can turn their season around.

“We have to stay confident,” Hendrickson said. “This team is going to be a good team.”

Fire fans and observers have heard that before, and they have every right to be skeptical that this is the time the club will follow through.

Over the last decade, there have been similar comments from coaches Frank Yallop, Veljko Paunovic and Raphael Wicky after losses that would be unthinkable for other franchises. Though they are different coaches with different backgrounds and philosophies, they all failed to fix a club that seems to invent new ways to lose.

Through four games, this group appeared to be different. The Fire were stingy in front of their own goal and opportunistic enough offensively to pick up eight points, sparking optimism that maybe the tide had turned in the Fire’s favor.

Then, even as the roster got better with the addition of wingers Chris Mueller and Jairo Torres, the Fire declined. The team’s defensive lapses picked up, and the personal slips got worse. And perhaps no game showed that more than the latest loss, when the last-place Fire outshot Toronto 33-5 and had 63% of the possession but still ran their MLS winless streak to 10.

“It was an incredible game,” defender Miguel Navarro said through a translator. “Sometimes [soccer] is like that; it’s unjust. We have to keep working hard and look over everything. It was really incredible. We have to keep our heads up and keep working hard and keep moving forward so that we can get points.”

Perhaps for other clubs, a game like that would be incredible, especially against a lowly team like Toronto. But the Fire have almost become predictable, and so far, the second build by sporting director Georg Heitz has only resulted in a pricey, top-heavy roster with little usable depth.

Sure, it’s possible the players will mesh and the team will start winning more games. Yet there was the same hope after Yallop signed three new designated players for the 2015 season. There was hope that a fourth year together was all Paunovic and executive Nelson Rodriguez needed to get it right, and that continuity under Heitz and Wicky in 2021 would bring better results.

Of course, those hopes were dashed. And that showed even though the club changed owners, stadiums, front-office brass, coaches, players and even logos, some things can stay the same.

This Fire team is in danger of continuing that trend.

“We’ve just got to believe in ourselves, believe in that, believe in what it is that we are doing and just cut out some of these individual errors,” Hendrickson said. “If we cut those out and continue to build and continue to progress like we have, I think we’ll be fine.”

Don’t believe it until it happens.

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On May 26, the White Sox lost 16-7, yet they still weren’t the Chicago team to allow the most runs that day. The Cubs were in Cincinnati and lost to the Reds (which is embarrassing enough) 20-5, the first time this century the Cubs allowed 20 runs in a game.

The Cubs have allowed 20 or more runs 12 times in team history and, believe it or not, they are 1-11 in those games. Just about 100 years ago, August 25, 1922, to be exact, they beat the Phillies 26-23. In that game, the Cubs scored 10 runs in the second inning and 14 runs in the fourth and still had to hang on as the Phillies scored eight in the eighth and six in the ninth and ended the game with a strikeout with the bases loaded. The Phils got some measure of retribution against the Cubs on May 17, 1979, as they defeated the Cubs 23-22 in 10 innings despite three Dave Kingman homers and seven RBI from Bill Buckner. The Phillies were also the last team before this year to score 20 runs against the Cubs, winning 21-8 on July 3, 1999.

Let’s see how good your 20-20 hindsight is during this week’s quiz.

1. Two Cubs pitchers have had six 20-win seasons. Who are they?

a. Mordecai Brown

b. Orval Overall

c. Fergie Jenkins

d. Lon Warneke

2. Who was the last White Sox 20-game winner?

a. Jack McDowell

b. LaMarr Hoyt

c. Mark Buehrle

d. Esteban Loaiza

3. Since 1901, one Cubs pitcher had two seasons with 20-plus losses. Who is this -unfortunate soul?

a. Larry Jackson

b. Toothpick Sam Jones

c. Dick Ellsworth

d. Bob Rush

4. Reader Peter Butler suggested I give a little love to former White Sox pitcher and knuckleballer Wilbur Wood, and I agree. Wood was a pitcher for the Red Sox and White Sox, and he was a workhorse. I’m going to make you work on this question. Please tell me if each of the following statements are true or false.

a. Wood was the last pitcher to make at least 45 starts in a season.

b. Wood was the last pitcher to pitch at least 345 innings in a season.

c. On July 20, 1973, Wood started both ends of a doubleheader against the Yankees and won both.

5. What do Wilbur Wood, Walter Johnson and Phil Niekro have in common?

a. They are all Hall of Famers.

b. They each had four seasons of 300-plus innings pitched.

c. They each were known for their knuckleball.

d. They each had a season in which they won 20-plus games and lost 20-plus games.

6. Since 2010, who had more 20-plus homer seasons while playing for the White Sox or the Cubs?

a. Anthony Rizzo

b. Jose Abreu

c. The same

7. Who had more seasons with 20-plus saves while -pitching for a Chicago team?

a. Lee Smith

b. Bobby Jenks

c. Bobby Thigpen

d. The same

8. The Cubs will face the Yankees next week. Alfonso -Soriano played for both of those teams. From 2007 to ’12, who had more seasons with 20-plus homers, -Soriano with the Cubs or Paul Konerko with the Sox?

a. Alfonso Soriano

b. Paul Konerko

c. The same

9. We recently lost a Goodfella, the prolific actor Ray Liotta. He was great in many films and TV shows, but it won’t surprise you that my favorite was his work in ”Field of Dreams.” What role did Liotta play in that classic film?

a. Henry Hill

b. Shoeless Joe Jackson

c. Ray Kinsella

d. Moonlight Graham

ANSWERS

1. Fergie and Brown are the six-timers. Warneke did it five times and Orval Overall (one of my favorite -baseball names) twice.

2. Loaiza went 21-9 in 2003.

3. In 1962, Ellsworth was 9-20, and just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he went 8-22 in 1966. All the rest lost 20 just once.

4. The first two are true, but the last one is true and false. Wood did indeed start both ends of the doubleheader. After Wood got no one out in the opener and the Sox lost 12-2, manager Chuck Tanner proved that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. Wood started the nightcap, and he and the Sox lost 7-0.

5. Johnson and Niekro are enshrined in Cooperstown. Johnson had eight 300-plus IP seasons. Wood and Niekro were knuckleballers. In 1916, Johnson was 25-20. In 1973, Wood was 24-20. In 1979, Niekro was 21-20.

6. Since 2010, Rizzo had seven seasons with 20-plus homers, and so did Abreu.

7. They each had five seasons with 20-plus saves.

8. Soriano and Konerko each had seven seasons with 20-plus homers.

9. Liotta was wonderful as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.

Shameless plug: My book with Bob Ryan, “In Scoring Position: 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair,” will make a great gift for Father’s Day.

Write me at [email protected], and you might be a part of the quiz.

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Jimmy Butler isn’t for everyone.

Then again, master artists aren’t always understood, especially when their medium of choice involves a palette of blood, sweat and mud.

The former Bull displayed his latest masterpiece in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Celtics, specifically a historic performance in a Game 6 elimination game in which Butler totaled 47 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and four steals.

And eventually it still wasn’t good enough, with Boston representing the East in the Finals by disposing of Butler and the Heat in Game 7.

That’s what should keep Bulls fans up at night.

They no longer have Butler. There is no homegrown tandem of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown anywhere near the UC.

There is no Joel Embiid in Chicago, nor a Kevin Durant. And if Bulls fans want to watch a player with the two-way skill set of Giannis Antetokounmpo, luckily Milwaukee is only a 90-mile drive away.

The reality check? None of those core players are going away.

The Eastern Conference playoffs were yet another reminder that while the Bulls took a major step in no longer being a punchline, they are still on a collision course with mediocrity with the roster as currently constructed. Good enough to get in the playoffs, but not good enough to get beyond the first or second round.

There is still the draft, and of course there are key free-agent decisions to be made at the end of June.

Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley already have shown a shrewd understanding of roster-building that was forgotten by the old regime.

But the core is still the core.

Continuity was the word of choice used by Karnisovas last month when meeting with the media, which meant there was still a strong belief in Nikola Vucevic, DeMar DeRozan and free-agent-to-be Zach LaVine as the faces of the franchise.

That’s not going to get it done in this conference. Best-case scenario, with apologies to Atlanta, Cleveland and Toronto, five teams still are better than the Bulls in the East, and those five teams aren’t going anywhere.

1. Boston

The beasts of the East likely will return all five starters, including veteran Al Horford in the final year of his deal. Few teams have the ability to score and lock the opposition down like the Celtics, and while championship windows are often false hope, this one has some staying power.

2. Miami

As long as Butler is in uniform, there’s a will and a way to stay an elite team. A decision could be made on Tyler Herro as a long-term option, but Pat Riley is on the Mount Rushmore of executives for a reason, so everything is on the table. Bradley Beal to the Heat, anyone?

3. Milwaukee

The injury to Khris Middleton in the playoffs cut one of the legs off the tripod that is Antetokounmpo, Middleton and Jrue Holiday. Brook Lopez will be a free agent after the 2022-23 season, while the Bucks have some decisions to make in the depth department. Either way, Milwaukee’s Big Three is better than anything the Bulls can throw at them.

4. Brooklyn

No team is better at wearing the “paper champs” title better than Durant and the Nets. If they can get Kyrie Irving, Ben Simmons and Durant on the floor at the same time for any extended period of time, however, they will again be a threat to win it all . . . on paper.

5. Philadelphia

Embiid is a Bulls killer and has the perfect role players around him. All eyes will be on James Harden and his $47 million player option this summer, but even with his declining talent, the Hall of Famer has the skill set to make the 76ers a threat.

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LAS VEGAS — A year ago, San Diego bettor Jim Schrope and Paul Stone, a handicapper from Tyler, Texas, met in Vegas to bet the South Point’s college football games of the year.

They’ve been pals for about 10 years, both produce power ratings — albeit in different ways — and both sought to exploit their projected spreads and totals against the sportsbook’s fresh figures. Both prospered.

The South Point, however, delayed unveiling its 2022 numbers, so Schrope and Stone — who both are from states without legal gambling — had to pivot. Stone drove two hours east, on I-20, to a sportsbook in Shreveport, Louisiana, and nabbed 10 sweet GOYs.

“With sports betting’s expansion,” says Stone, “some of these more-aggressive books are getting to the starting line even earlier.”

A Stone favorite is Utah plus 1.5 points at home against USC on Oct. 15. Utah is now -3. Says Stone, “The Utes should have been favored, at home, to begin with.”

Circa Sports released its Week 0 and 1 lines on May 22. Stone flew in that Monday, betting 11 sides and 10 totals. At William Hill inside the Four Queens, he made more wagers. He returned to Texas on May 31.

By May 26, DraftKings had listed lines and totals on the first two weeks, plus dozens of GOY spreads — 97 total offerings.

Schrope, 57, had circled Under 56 points on Northwestern-Nebraska on Aug. 27 in Ireland. But he missed the no-fanfare Circa reveal and the South Point’s surprise unveiling May 27. That total was soon whittled to 51.

Timing.

Should the 60-year-old Stone handicap, and bet, an Arkansas game at -6.5 today, and that’s the line before the game in five months, he’d consider himself an abject failure for tying up bankroll.

“And good Lord, God forbid,” he says, “if it’s 5.5 the week of the game, I failed miserably.”

ADVANTAGE ACTION

Stone produces a podcast, a weekly must-listen, and can be heard regularly on various platforms, like the Vegas Stats & Information Network. His handicapping operation serves select clientele.

As chronicled by the independent Sports Monitor of Oklahoma, Stone has an impressive 55.8% regular-season success rate, on 685 college football games, since 2015.

He is involved with two Arkansas games, giving 6.5 points at home over Cincinnati on Sept. 3 and taking 7.5 against Texas A&M, at AT&T Stadium, on Sept. 24. To Stone, both qualify as getting the best of it.

He also nabbed Louisiana-Monroe and 39.5 points at Texas on Sept. 3, which is now 38 around town. He had pegged that range between 31.5 and 35. The Longhorns play host to Alabama the following week.

Stone sees Texas rotating many players, especially on an uncertain offensive line and in some questionable defensive spots.

“I think Texas will have one eye on Alabama, as well. Hypothetically, Monroe could trail by 45, get in that back door with a meaningless touchdown with a minute and a half left, and get beat by 38.”

He took Under 52 in Clemson at Georgia Tech, on Sept. 3, which has dipped to 49.5 at Circa. Stone believes Tech won’t tally more than 14 against the nation’s best defense.

Via Costa Rica connections, Schrope got Ohio State -12.5 at home against Notre Dame and Georgia -13.5 against Oregon, in Atlanta, both on Sept. 3. He relishes giving fewer than two touchdowns in both games.

The Buckeyes are up to 14.5-point favorites, the Bulldogs 17.

Moreover, Schrope is monitoring Under 61.5 in Kent State at Washington on Sept. 3 and likes Virginia Tech giving only 8 at Old Dominion on Sept. 2.

CUT NO CORNERS

Even though power ratings form the foundation of his betting tactics, Schrope, a naval aerospace engineer, doesn’t promote them as the sole avenue to success.

“Plenty of people do well not making power ratings,” he says. “It’s the way I was indoctrinated into sports gambling, especially college football. So it’s what I do.”

Schrope takes teams’ final ratings from 2021 and massages those, according to the grade of personnel lost or acquired, for 2022.

He rates each of eight positions, scaled to opinion. Quarterbacks over running backs, offensive line over defensive line. Defensive backs are premium players.

“When you have a communication issue in the back, it’s often catastrophic — a touchdown.”

Those numbers get adjusted weekly, according to performance or injury, producing a single team rating. Intangibles like home-field advantage and a solid away-underdog coach, say, are other weekly situational ingredients.

By contrast, Stone produces new numbers every season for all 131 Division-I programs.

“I wouldn’t know how to begin, the way Paul does it,” says Schrope. They have a friendly rivalry and respect all methods. With so much annual change, though, due to the transfer portal, Stone favors his routine.

Both do their homework by hand, Schrope with pen and notebook, Stone employing dull No. 2 pencils and 8-by-12 Big Chief writing tablets.

“I’ve been doing it like this for so long, I don’t want to fall into the trap of not being thorough in my process,” says Stone, “or cutting corners, or making something easier than it needs to be.”

For those interested in devising power ratings, Stone suggests beginning with Jeff Sagarin or Sonny Moore numbers, available on the internet, to use as a template, tweaking to taste, taking years to polish.

Another Stone nugget?

Always have a shop in Shreveport as an option.

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At least seven people were wounded by gunfire Friday in shootings across Chicago.

Two men, 38 and 18, were standing in the 2600 block of West 12th Place about 7:55 p.m. when both were shot in the legs, Chicago police said. They went to Mount Sinai Hospital and were listed in good condition, officials said. About 20 minutes later, another man, 24, was in the passenger seat of a car in the 2300 block of South Troy Street when he was shot in the back, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai and was listed in fair condition.

At least four others were wounded by gunfire across Chicago Friday.

Two people were killed and 10 others were wounded, including a U.S. marshal, in shootings across Chicago Thursday.

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The Blackhawks’ 2022 offseason will be hard-pressed to match the eventfulness of their 2021 offseason.

Two earth-shaking trades, one franchise-changing lawsuit and a flurry of other moves kept last summer delivering surprises around every turn. But with new general manager Kyle Davidson expected to plunge the Hawks into a rebuild, this summer likely won’t lack movement or news, either.

Here’s a guide to what this NHL offseason will bring for the Hawks:

Draft

With their first-round pick going to the Blue Jackets, the Hawks enter the final month of preparation for the draft — set for July 7-8 in Montreal — without a first-rounder.

They do, however, own five picks in the second and third rounds combined. They’ll pick 38th and 57th overall in the second round, the latter of those coming from the Wild in the Marc-Andre Fleury trade. They’ll pick 81st and 90th overall in the third round, holding the Golden Knights’ and Maple Leafs’ picks.

They’ll also pick either 64th or 65th in the second round or 94th or 95th in the third round as a result of an unresolved condition in the Duncan Keith trade. They’ll pick in the second round if the Oilers beat the Avalanche in the Western Conference final.

The Hawks don’t own a fourth- or fifth-round pick but do own two sixth-round picks (167th and 173rd overall) and one seventh-round pick (199th overall).

It’s nearly impossible to predict whom the Hawks’ scouting staff — now led by new associate GM Norm Maciver — might target with the second- and third-round picks. They’re simply too deep into the order to forecast.

But the Hawks at least should be able to add a large quantity of decent prospects, playing the numbers game and hoping that one or two will evolve into impact players. Forwards should be the priority.

Trades

It’s possible the Hawks could acquire a first-round pick in the weeks, days or hours before the draft. That’s a common period for trades in general, and every contending team will have Davidson on speed-dial this summer.

Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews are the names that’ll be talked about the most, but they hold all the cards in their hands. The Hawks can’t and won’t trade either of them unless they request it. The aggressiveness of Davidson’s other moves could influence their decisions, though, considering how strongly they lobbied at season’s end for a quicker rebuild.

Alex DeBrincat is unlikely to be traded, but it’s conceivable — and if it happens, it would send shockwaves through Chicago. He is entering the last year of his current contract. The Devils — holding the second overall pick — could make a play, although that pick alone wouldn’t be enough.

Other than DeBrincat, the Hawks don’t have much of significant value to dangle on the market, other than perhaps veteran defensemen Connor Murphy and Jake McCabe.

Henrik Borgstrom and Nicolas Beaudin, the 2018 first-round pick who was a healthy scratch for all but one game of Rockford’s AHL playoff run, could be given changes of scenery.

Coach and front office

Davidson plans to have a permanent head coach in place by early-to-mid July. There are plenty of candidates of all types on the market, although the Hawks haven’t made their interests known yet. This search will surely produce lots of news over the coming month.

Maciver and Jeff Greenberg will be Davidson’s top front-office hirings, but many more positions at lower rungs of the latter still need to be filled. Tight Davidson confidant Brian Campbell still needs an official role and title, too.

Free agency

Unrestricted free agents: Calvin de Haan, Erik Gustafsson, Kevin Lankinen, Collin Delia, Kurtis Gabriel.

Restricted free agents: Kirby Dach, Dylan Strome, Dominik Kubalik, Philipp Kurashev, Caleb Jones, Andrei Altybarmakyan, Cam Morrison, Wyatt Kalynuk, Cale Morris.

The first free-agency-related deadline was Wednesday, when the Hawks allowed their draft rights to Niklas Nordgren (2018 third-round pick) and Chad Yetman (2020 seventh-round pick) expire, making them UFAs.

The next notable date is July 11, the deadline for RFA qualifying offers. Any of the aforementioned RFAs who don’t receive an offer will become a UFA. Those who do among Strome, Kubalik, Jones, Altybarmakyan, Kalynuk and Morris can elect salary arbitration before the deadline July 17. Dach, Kurashev and Morrison can’t.

Unrestricted free agency begins July 13. The Hawks have an estimated $20.1 million in salary-cap space, according to Capfriendly. If Kane or Toews (who count $10.5 million each against the cap) depart, they’d have a lot more. But they’re not expected to spend heavily regardless.

As good as Strome was down the stretch and as popular as he is among fans, he doesn’t seem to be in Davidson’s plans, although the door hasn’t closed. Kubalik is coming off a very disappointing year and doesn’t seem to be in the plans, either. The Hawks could try to trade their RFA rights for mid-round picks.

Dach’s next contract shouldn’t cost more than $3 million or so, depending on its length, because of his disappointing growth. Jones said in April there had been “a little talk” already regarding his contract negotiations. He was “optimistic” he’d be re-signed. Kurashev should come cheap.

Among the UFAs, de Haan and Gustafsson almost certainly won’t be brought back. Sam Lafferty, originally part of that list, has already been re-signed. Lankinen, Delia and the murky goalie situation is interesting, as Davidson analyzed in May.

“We definitely need to bring some NHL contracts in,” he said. “Kevin and Collin are part of that discussion — they’re not out of that candidate list — but there [are] some players that we’ll look at in free agency and see which direction we want to go. [I’m] not ruling out the trade market, either.”

Davidson added it’s “very unlikely” he’ll sign any UFAs at any position to long-term contracts, then clarified they still could “fill some spots in the UFA market if the right opportunity presents itself.”

Assuming the Hawks don’t try to orchestrate Fleury’s return or shell out big money for Darcy Kuemper, the notable UFA goalie options will be Ville Husso, Jack Campbell, Mikko Koskinen, Braden Holtby and Casey DeSmith. The Hawks could get some capital for taking Petr Mrazek’s or Anton Khudobin’s contract off the Leafs’ or Stars’ hands, if they pursue that route.

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When it felt like nature itself was conspiring against one of the things he does best, Justin Fields stayed late. A particularly windy minicamp practice in April prompted the frustrated Bears quarterback to throw extra-deep passes long after some teammates had trudged off to the locker room at Halas Hall.

“He was upset because the wind was blowing like 30 miles an hour in,” tight end Cole Kmet said last week. “He’s out there launching balls after practice. It’s definitely something that he works on — and you can see it.”

For all the questions about Fields entering his second season, there’s no doubting his ability to go deep. As a rookie last year, he led the NFL with 7.4 air yards per completion, a measurement of how far the ball flies past the line of scrimmage before it’s caught.

That Fields did so in a broken offensive scheme is a credit to him — and damning of his previous bosses. Last year, the Bears proved that a dangerous deep ball doesn’t always equate to an efficient passing attack. But this year’s Bears believe that’s a good place to start.

Fields’ deep passes are the strongest part of his arsenal, and new coordinator Luke Getsy must build an offense to take advantage of it. If not, Fields risks the same sort of square-peg-meets-round-hole disaster he experienced under former coach Matt Nagy.

New coach Matt Eberflus, who has been reticent to offer much about any of his players as he evaluates them during offseason workouts, last week singled out Fields’ knack for throwing long.

“I would say, ‘Man, he throws a good deep ball,’ ” Eberflus said. “I’m excited about that. And you could see it in the seven-on-seven and 11-on-11s, and we’re gonna take our shots down the field and, man, he does a nice job doing that. And that’s what stands out to me.”

As a defensive-minded coach, Eberflus knows what kind of stress that can put on a defense once players put pads on.

At Ohio State, where almost 70% of his passing yards came before the catch, Fields was graded the most accurate passer since at least 2014 by Pro Football Focus. Combine that with his ability to scramble, and the Bears can dream.

There are plenty of weaknesses to fix, though. Only two quarterbacks who started more than six games in 2021 — fellow rookies Zach Wilson of the Jets and Trevor Lawrence of the Jaguars — had a lower percentage of throws hitting their target than Fields’ 72.7%, according to Pro Football Reference. Only one regular starting QB had receivers gaining fewer yards than Fields’ receivers after they caught the ball.

Fields’ receiving corps this year looks to be even worse than last year’s after the Bears lost Allen Robinson, Damiere Byrd, Marquise Goodwin and Jakeem Grant — four of their five regulars — in free agency. They were replaced by a collective shrug. Byron Pringle and Equanimeous St. Brown are two of five veterans the Bears signed to one-year deals to team with returning stalwart Darnell Mooney and third-round pick Velus Jones.

Backup quarterback Trevor Siemian said the Bears have plenty of speed on the outside — “Guys can separate,” he said — but admitted it’s hard to judge receivers until cornerbacks can put on pads and play bump coverage.

Until then, the Bears are trying to glean all they can from Fields.

“You can start with just his speed,” quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko said. “He has some athletic tools that can’t be coached, and that’s really cool. And then the next thing is just his intangibles and the way he feels, the way he feels in the pocket and how he’s adapted to the training.

“He’s such a natural athlete that you can say it to him once or you can demonstrate it. . . .He can just take to that training and apply it to a drill and then take it to a team period.”

Getsy brought an outside-zone run scheme with him from Green Bay that he hopes will help Fields.

“It takes all 11 [players], and for a young quarterback implementing that around him, that’s huge,” he said. “So if you can run the ball, that helps you in your play-pass game.

“The hardest part of this game is dropping back to pass. Plain and simple, that’s the hardest thing to do in this league. So if you don’t have to do that as often, you’ve got a chance.”

The deep-ball elements of the passing attack could be inspired as much by Getsy’s former Mississippi State boss Joe Moorhead — now Akron’s head coach — as by another of Getsy’s former bosses, Packers coach Matt LaFleur.

His current boss, Eberflus, understands how Fields can stress defenses. Now it’s up to the Bears to scheme it.

“I think [it’s] twofold — the deep ball and then the ability to run with the ball,” Eberflus said. “I think those things stretch you, so when you get stretched vertically and horizontally like that, it always causes stressors on a defense. It doesn’t matter what kind of style you’re running.”

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