Chicago Bears: 3 things we want to see from Justin Fields in the final two gamesRyan Heckmanon December 28, 2022 at 2:46 pm
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The WNBA is infiltrating the NBA, several star players at a timeon December 28, 2022 at 1:49 pm
FROM THE OPENING tip, Paolo Banchero asserts himself in his NBA debut, scoring the Orlando Magic’s first points after he cuts toward the middle of the paint, makes a hard two-handed dribble and absorbs contact from Detroit Pistons forward Saddiq Bey with a spin move before unleashing a turnaround hook shot. Banchero would go on to score 27 points on opening night, the most by a No. 1 overall draft pick in his first game since Allen Iverson in 1996, in front of a sold-out crowd at Little Caesars Arena.
It’s the kind of gaudy stat line Banchero has put up often while averaging 21.7 points during his rookie season, but there’s at least one person usually unimpressed by his scoring numbers alone: his mother. Having a former WNBA player as a mom has its advantages, and Rhonda Smith-Banchero’s high standard for the rookie is what made him who he is today.
“When I was younger I was hearing it after every game, even if I played well,” Banchero told ESPN. “And it’d be like, ‘Oh well, you didn’t do this,’ or ‘Your hands wasn’t up in the midpost.’ She’d find a little stuff to pick at. That’s why I love her.” She always told me she wanted me to just make it farther, be better than she was. She always felt like she sold herself short a little bit with her career. So, she never wanted me to do that and make those same mistakes.”
The Pistons respond to Banchero’s opening basket when Cade Cunningham draws a crowd at the rim but finds 2022 No. 5 overall pick Jaden Ivey cutting toward the hoop for a two-handed layup. Less than a minute into their NBA debuts, both top-five picks are on the board.
Paolo Banchero’s basketball game was largely influenced by his mother, Rhonda Banchero-Smith, a former WNBA player. Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
Banchero and Ivey will always remain linked as part of the same draft class. They rank first and third, respectively, among rookies in scoring this season, (Indiana’s Ben Mathurin is second). Both Banchero and Ivey — set to meet for the first time since opening night when the Pistons host the Magic on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET) — can also trace their basketball roots through mothers who had their own professional playing careers.
Rhonda Smith-Banchero graduated as the all-time leading scorer at the University of Washington in 1995 (now No. 6 on that list) and played professionally for several seasons in the American Basketball League (ABL) before playing one season for the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs in 2000. Niele Ivey played four seasons in the WNBA between the Indiana Fever, Detroit Shock and Phoenix Mercury and is the current head coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. The 2022 NBA Finals featured six sons of former NBA players.
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Banchero and Ivey represent the next wave of second-generation players filling NBA rosters who are the proud sons of former WNBA players. The story of demanding fathers readying their sons for the pros has been told. But for this rookie duo, watching and learning the game from their mothers has been the difference-maker.
“To have a mother that just loves the game, her passion for the game every single day, I wouldn’t have had that same passion if it wasn’t for my mother,” Ivey said.
IT TOOK IVEY some time to settle into his first regular-season game as a pro, but once he did, he was electric in the third quarter. His instincts and his speed took over as he scored 10 of his 19 points against Banchero and the Magic.
Weathering an uneven start to the game brought him back to the lessons of perseverance he learned from his mother, Niele, who was in the stands on opening night. It’s a little more than a three-hour drive from South Bend, Indiana, to Detroit, so Niele makes the trip to watch her son play whenever her schedule allows. Although she doesn’t press with many reminders on game days, her lessons still bounce around her son’s mind.
“She just told me whatever you’re doing, just continue to trust your work. It’s not going to be easy,” Ivey told ESPN. “There’s going to be times that are going to be challenging, hard, but at the end of the day, what you take from it and how you take adversity is just going to make you a better person.”
Both Jaden and Paolo grew up watching, appreciating and learning from the women’s game. Paolo would tag along as Rhonda coached at a junior college and an all-girls high school in Seattle, while Jaden accompanied Niele to practices, games, shootarounds and Final Fours while she was an assistant for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. It gave both NBA players an appreciation for the game by seeing the passion and attention to detail their mothers and the players they coached put into perfecting their craft.
Jaden Ivey grew up close to the game of basketball, watching the work ethic of his mother, Niele Ivey, during her WNBA career playing for the Indiana Fever and Detroit Shock. Matt Detrich/IndyStar
“We don’t play above the rim, but he saw the intangibles,” Niele Ivey told ESPN. “He saw the things that got us to this point and the success that we’ve had.”
Niele Ivey went to the Final Four as an assistant coach at Notre Dame seven times (2011-2015, 2018-2019) and she left an impression on a young Jaden, who remembers how little sleep his mother got as she prepared for big games.
“She’d be watching film all night before the big games, wouldn’t get any sleep before,” he said. “I would wake up, it would be 7 in the morning, and she’d still be watching film from last night.”
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That grind imprinted in Jaden from an early age is part of the reason his rookie campaign has gotten off to such a fast start. He is averaging 15.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.0 assists on 42% shooting and has been thrust into a larger role with Cunningham out for the season with a shin injury.
“He knows the game,” Pistons coach Dwane Casey told ESPN. “He may make a mistake, but it’s an honest mistake. You say one thing to him and he knows what the correction should be. He’s the first one to know it when I get on him about something. So that, to me, tells me that he’s been taught well and he’s been around good coaches his entire career. Even as a toddler he was around the game … I love kids like that.”
PAMELA AND JAVALE MCGEEwere the first mother-son duo to have played in the WNBA and NBA, making history when JaVale was drafted in 2008, but there have been only a few other instances of sons following in their mothers’ footsteps.
Pam and JaVale McGee were the first mother-son duo to play in the WNBA and NBA. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO
Magic guard Gary Harris is the son of Joy Holmes-Harris, who played one season for the Detroit Shock in 2000. Each of the women who have sons in the NBA had stopped playing professionally by 2005. A few other dominant women’s basketball players have sons who pursued the sport — Tina Thompson’s son, Dyllan, is playing high school basketball in Houston, and Sheryl Swoopes’ son, Jordan Jackson, plays professionally in the Lebanese league.
The relative youth of the WNBA, which just completed its 26th season in 2022, plays a role in the lack of mother-son duos — there also has never been a mother-daughter duo in league history — but so do the choices women’s basketball players have often had to make between prioritizing their playing careers and raising children.
“There’s a lot of mothers back then that either decided to not have or decided to walk away from a career of balancing both, there’s probably many stories out there,” said Niele Ivey, who was pregnant with Jaden during her WNBA rookie season in 2001 but didn’t tell the Indiana Fever until exit interviews.
“I know for myself I had a lot of worry, a lot of anxiety of will I be back? Securing a spot, just continuing my career, you just never know of having a child.”
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Skylar Diggins-Smith made the same choice in 2018, playing that entire season pregnant without telling the Dallas Wings, and then missing the entire 2019 season while getting back in shape and dealing with postpartum depression. It was not an uncommon situation throughout league history — Swoopes was at the top of her game in 1997 but missed the inaugural WNBA season to give birth, and Candace Parker found out after the fact that she had played part of her rookie season pregnant with her first child.
The experience turned Diggins-Smith into an advocate for improving conditions for working mothers in the league, both on social media and at the bargaining table for the Women’s National Basketball Players Association during its latest collective bargaining agreement with the league. The new CBA, ratified in 2020, includes changes aimed at providing increased resources for mothers and help for raising their children, including paid maternity leave for the first time in league history, a child care stipend, two-bedroom apartments for players with kids and mental health services.
“Now there’s so many success stories out there, you see so many mothers that are having the opportunity to do both, balancing motherhood and a career,” Niele Ivey said. “There’s so many success stories and so many women out there that you can relate to now. The resources are so much stronger now. I love that because I know how it was.” The changes in the CBA are notable, but current players are also noticing the shifting attitudes from teams toward raising children.
“I know for myself and my organization, it feels more accepted,” Las Vegas Aces guard Dearica Hamby told ESPN. “I couldn’t imagine back then. Now, I feel comfortable bringing my daughter, Amaya, to practice. I wouldn’t say that five years ago. So it’s been more about that than the actual CBA.”
Hamby helped the Aces win their first WNBA championship this year, and during her speech at Las Vegas’ championship parade, she announced she was expecting her second child, a baby brother for Amaya.
Hamby knows her children are going to grow up around basketball; their father played college basketball, and their aunt, Olivia Nelson-Ododa, plays for the Los Angeles Sparks — but she doesn’t want to put any extra pressure on them to pick up a basketball, even if she figures they will eventually gravitate toward the sport.
With more chances for women to raise kids and play their sports, the number of players following in their mothers’ footsteps seems almost certain to grow in the coming years.
“It’s going to be a new wave,” Jaden Ivey said. “The love you have for the game, it translates to women and men, it doesn’t matter what it is.”
Nothin’ but Nets wins: Brooklyn is soaring up our NBA Power Rankingson December 28, 2022 at 1:51 pm
One Eastern Conference contender is streaking up the NBA standings.
With a win on Monday over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Brooklyn Nets have run their streak to nine games, tying the longest in the league this season. (The other two teams to pull it off, the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, sit right above Brooklyn in the standings at the top two spots.)
Meanwhile, the top of the Western Conference has seen some reshuffling, with the New Orleans Pelicans regaining second place following three straight wins and the Memphis Grizzlies‘ Christmas Day defeat at the Golden State Warriors.
Then there’s Luka Doncic, who put up the first 60-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist performance in NBA history during Tuesday’s thrilling overtime win versus the New York Knicks.
Where do all 30 teams stand in the final NBA Power Rankings of 2022?
Note: Throughout the regular season, our panel (Kendra Andrews, Tim Bontemps, Jamal Collier, Nick Friedell, Andrew Lopez, Tim MacMahon, Dave McMenamin and Ohm Youngmisuk) is ranking all 30 teams from top to bottom, taking stock of which teams are playing the best basketball now and which teams are looking most like title contenders.
Royal Thunder reemerge with their original drummer and a riveting new single
For many of us, the early days of the pandemic meant lost time and opportunities, but for Royal Thunder, that long, lonely period sparked a rebirth. Formed in 2004, the Atlanta band had made a name for themselves with a mix of heavy psych, bluesy hard rock, prog, and more—but they’d split up just before COVID gut-punched the States. In the months that followed, vocalist and bassist Mlny Parsonz and guitarist Josh Weaver reconnected with the band’s original drummer, Evan Diprima, and reconvened as a trio. “We decided to get the band back together and do things right,” Parsonz told me over email. “It was a huge void in our lives, and we really missed our family Royal Thunder and the outlet it provided all of us.” The process of rebuilding the band from the ground up helped inspire a wealth of new material, including the new single “The Knife,” their first release since the 2017 album Wick. The thundering rock banger draws on a 90s alt-rock sensibility, an influence the band credits to having come of age during the early part of that decade. (In the same email, Weaver recalled that hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the first time as a 12-year-old skate punk inspired him to go home and pick up the guitar he’d received as a Christmas present years before.) Parsonz makes this compact three-and-a-half minute nugget feel vulnerable and personal with her powerhouse vocals, though its themes—confronting the ways we subconsciously sabotage ourselves, tapping into inner strength to fight for something better—are universally relatable. Though the band have been elusive about whether they’ll release a full album in the new year, they’ve dropped hints that they’ve got fun stuff in the works. So anyone who makes it out to this show at Cobra Lounge—part of a three-city jaunt—might just be treated to a preview of what Royal Thunder have in store for us as they rise from their own ashes.
Royal Thunder Sat1/7, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland, $17, 17+
Royal Thunder reemerge with their original drummer and a riveting new single Read More »
Royal Thunder reemerge with their original drummer and a riveting new singleJamie Ludwigon December 28, 2022 at 12:00 pm
For many of us, the early days of the pandemic meant lost time and opportunities, but for Royal Thunder, that long, lonely period sparked a rebirth. Formed in 2004, the Atlanta band had made a name for themselves with a mix of heavy psych, bluesy hard rock, prog, and more—but they’d split up just before COVID gut-punched the States. In the months that followed, vocalist and bassist Mlny Parsonz and guitarist Josh Weaver reconnected with the band’s original drummer, Evan Diprima, and reconvened as a trio. “We decided to get the band back together and do things right,” Parsonz told me over email. “It was a huge void in our lives, and we really missed our family Royal Thunder and the outlet it provided all of us.” The process of rebuilding the band from the ground up helped inspire a wealth of new material, including the new single “The Knife,” their first release since the 2017 album Wick. The thundering rock banger draws on a 90s alt-rock sensibility, an influence the band credits to having come of age during the early part of that decade. (In the same email, Weaver recalled that hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the first time as a 12-year-old skate punk inspired him to go home and pick up the guitar he’d received as a Christmas present years before.) Parsonz makes this compact three-and-a-half minute nugget feel vulnerable and personal with her powerhouse vocals, though its themes—confronting the ways we subconsciously sabotage ourselves, tapping into inner strength to fight for something better—are universally relatable. Though the band have been elusive about whether they’ll release a full album in the new year, they’ve dropped hints that they’ve got fun stuff in the works. So anyone who makes it out to this show at Cobra Lounge—part of a three-city jaunt—might just be treated to a preview of what Royal Thunder have in store for us as they rise from their own ashes.
Royal Thunder Sat1/7, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland, $17, 17+
Woman rescued by Chicago firefighters after jumping into Lake Michigan to save her dog
Chicago firefighters rescued a woman from Lake Michigan Tuesday after she jumped into the water to save her dog.
The woman, 54, was walking her dogs in the 5600 block of South Shore Drive when one of the dogs fell into the lake near Edgewater Beach just before 8 a.m., Chicago police said.
Witnesses called the Chicago Fire Department to help pull the woman and her dog to safety, police said.
She declined medical attention and no other injuries were reported, police said.
Woman rescued by Chicago firefighters after jumping into Lake Michigan to save her dog Read More »
Chicago Bears News: Prepping for Lions, JJ Watt retires, and moreVincent Pariseon December 28, 2022 at 12:00 pm
GLENDALE, ARIZONA – DECEMBER 25: Defensive end J.J. Watt #99 of the Arizona Cardinals warms up before the NFL game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at State Farm Stadium on December 25, 2022 in Glendale, Arizona. The Buccaneers defeated the Cardinals 19-16 in overtime. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
The Chicago Bears are 3-12 but they have a lot of reasons to keep playing hard. The hope is that certain players continue to play well while the team as a whole continues to lose so that they can end up with a top-two pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
One player to keep an eye on over these next two games is Justin Fields. It will be interesting to see how his playing time looks over the final couple of games as he has been knocked around a lot this season.
On deck this week is the Detroit Lions who are trying hard to get into the playoffs. Jared Goff and the crew had a terrible start to the season but have since bounced back and now have a very real chance of making it to the postseason.
They will be motivated to be at their best against the Bears which should mean that the Bears have no chance. They are one of the worst teams in the NFL so it won’t be surprising at all to see them be horrible in this game.
It also wouldn’t be surprising to see the Bears come up with an upset here over Detroit. Of course, that would be terrible for their draft stock, and nobody is actually rooting for that but the players are going to be trying to play spoiler.
2023 could be a great year if this team is smart but it is going to take some smart decisions and lots of hard work. They can’t forget that as an organization.
If Justin Fields needs to sit at any point over the next two weeks, he should. We now know after this year that he is the guy and everything should revolve around his future. One game against the Lions (or the Vikings for that matter) should not stand in the way of that.
JJ Watt Retires
JJ Watt has been a wildly respected foe for a long time. He spent most of his career with the Houston Texans before his short tenure with the Arizona Cardinals. This is a three-time Defensive Player of the Year and a five-time Pro Bowler. It is a lock that he will be in the Hall of Fame.
On Tuesday, he announced that he will retire from the NFL after this season. That is some big news as one of the greatest ever will be leaving the game.
Few have been more respected for their game on the field and the person they are off the field more than him. Congrats to him on his amazing career.
Other NFL News:
The races in both the NFC and AFC are heating up. With two weeks left in the regular season, there is still a lot left to be decided.
It will be interesting to see how injuries play a part in all of this. For one, Jalen Hurts is still questionable after missing last week. His Philadelphia Eagles are the frontrunners to be the number one seed in the NFC but can they do it without him?
The Miami Dolphins are barely hanging onto a playoff spot and Tua Tagovailoa is going to be out. They need to come up with some magic without their quarterback in order to finally get back into the postseason.
This league is amazing right now and completely unpredictable. As we get closer to the postseason, the more exciting it gets.
Luka Doncic’s 60-point triple-double stuns NBA Twitteron December 28, 2022 at 6:23 am
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Luka Doncic’s 60-point triple-double stuns NBA Twitteron December 28, 2022 at 6:23 am Read More »
Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane fade back to silence in Blackhawks’ loss to Hurricanes
RALEIGH, N.C. — In the Blackhawks’ win against the Blue Jackets last Friday, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews played like it was 2013 again.
They finished with three points each and were named the game’s first and second stars. For a few fleeting hours, it felt like the glory days.
“You never know how long you’ll play the game, let alone play in a city like Chicago in front of our fans, [so] it really never gets old,” Toews said that night. “You can’t ever let yourself take it for granted. It’s pretty special.”
But if Friday felt like 2013, Tuesday felt very much like 2022.
The Hawks slipped right back into their hapless losing ways against the relentless Hurricanes, who shut them out 3-0 for the second time this season.
Goaltender Petr Mrazek’s career-high 46 saves — in his first start in his former home arena — were the lone bright spot for the Hawks. And that stat was only made possible by conceding 49 shots on goal, the most they’ve allowed since May 2021.
Neither Kane nor Toews made any significant impact. They were largely invisible, tallying just three combined shots on goal. Toews’ most memorable moment was probably berating the referee after an iffy late penalty call.
The speedy third line of Jason Dickinson centering Andreas Athanasiou and Sam Lafferty was the only trio that had anything going. They generated a 6-5 edge in scoring chances during five-on-five play. The Hurricanes buried the rest of the Hawks 24-7 in scoring chances, including 18-6 against Kane and Toews’ lines.
“The Dickinson line really played well,” coach Luke Richardson said. “They had a real solid three periods and gave us a lot of chances. Athanasiou, at the end of [a second-period] power play, hit the crossbar. Lafferty just missed the post in the first period, too.
“The other guys are trying. They’re trying to create. This [Hurricanes] team just closes quick, and they’re hard on their sticks. So it’s a little frustrating not getting enough offense to give Petr some scoring support that he needs.”
The Jackets win reminded the Hawks how beneficial scoring the first goal can be. That advantage, however, went the other way Tuesday — Martin Necas and Jesper Fast both scored within the first nine minutes to give the hosts a lead to sit on — and the Hawks came nowhere close to climbing the mountain.
“I don’t know if there’s much we could have done better other than be a little sharper with our breakouts and with the puck in the first period,” Richardson added. “That was pretty much the game right there. We responded well, which was good. We didn’t just lay over and die. But we definitely have to be better in the first period.”
This ineptitude is predominantly not Kane and Toews’ faults. There’s only so much they can achieve when their linemates are Max Domi, Tyler Johnson, Taylor Raddysh and Phillipp Kurashev — four decent players, but not legitimate top-six weapons on any contending team.
But on the Hawks of 2022, this is simply the reality. The supporting cast has been gutted; a top draft pick is the organizational objective. Tuesday offered a glaring reminder of that, just like most days do.
As the NHL’s March 3 trade deadline slowly approaches, both Hawks legends will be forced to decide whether they can — and want to — stomach that reality through season’s end. They haven’t tipped their hands yet, and they have every right to ultimately decide they can.
Nights like Tuesday sure make convincing arguments for the alternative, though.
Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane fade back to silence in Blackhawks’ loss to Hurricanes Read More »
High school basketball: Sweet-shooting Cam Christie leads Rolling Meadows past St. Patrick
There’s a special joy in watching a beautiful jump shot. Rolling Meadows senior Cam Christie has owned one of those pretty jumpers since he was a freshman, and over the past few years, he’s grown to 6-6.
With that size and his athletic ability, his release point is sky-high. It’s difficult to remember a local player that was so tall, had such elevation on his jumper and was also the best shooter in the state.
“I’ve had to [get the elevation] over time,” Christie said. “When I was younger I wasn’t the tallest and I was playing with [Max Christie and Bryce Hopkins] and I had to find some way to get a shot off.”
Max Christie, Cam’s older brother, is a Los Angeles Laker. Hopkins, who played at Fenwick, is now at Providence College.
Cam Christie didn’t have his best shooting game on Tuesday, but he still scored 18 points to lead No. 13 Rolling Meadows to a 58-39 win against No. 22 St. Patrick in the second round of the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic at York.
“Cam elevates higher than Max did and even when he misses the shot it looks like it is gonna go in,” Rolling Meadows coach Kevin Katovich said. “It’s always a surprise when it doesn’t.”
The Shamrocks (9-3) held Rolling Meadows to just three points in the second quarter and only trailed by four at halftime. But the Mustangs (13-1) opened the third quarter with a 10-0 run and never looked back.
“We just kind of slowed down a little bit and executed what we’re trying to execute,” Katovich said. “And then when we were scoring we were able to set up our defense and it went from there.”
Junior Antoine Thomas led St. Patrick with 15 points and senior Andrew Ayeni added 10 points and five rebounds.
This is the best team in Rolling Meadows history. Christie is surrounded with talented teammates. The Mustangs don’t have much depth, but there is great size and multiple shooters.
Foster Ogbonna, a 6-4 senior, had 14 points and 12 rebounds and 6-7 senior Mark Nikolich-Wilson added 12 points and 11 rebounds. Tsvet Sotirov, a 6-7 senior recently back from an injury, contributed nine points and five rebounds.
“The [1990 team that went to state] might argue that but it is the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Katovich said. “Last year we were 28-6 and I think the guys got used to the high expectations. They love it. The bigger the game the better they are.”
The Mustangs will face Glenbrook South, a team they beat by 13 in November, in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Rolling Meadows is the favorite to win the tournament and the overall expectations are much higher: a trip to state and even a state title.
“We definitely feel we have a good chance to go to state,” Christie said. “We just have to compete in every game and as long as we keep playing hard we will be able to get there.”