The NBA draft lottery slotted the Suns fifth in the selection order, assuring they will not get a chance to pick Nerlens Noel without a trade.
But they could take the center who dominated Noel to start the past college season.
Everyone attending last week’s international wrestling federation Extraordinary Congress in Moscow received a small mirror as a gift and a reminder.
The message: No matter how far wrestling has progressed in less than four months since being dropped as an Olympic core sport, hard work remains for each person in the mirror if a sport with Ancient Games history is to make the Modern Games in 2020 and beyond.
DENVER — The road trip took less than a week and yet it managed to feel longer to manager Kirk Gibson. After stops in Miami and Colorado, the Diamondbacks had played .500 ball, they had struggled to hit consistently and on Wednesday afternoon they seemed to him to be playing with less energy during a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies.
He said, as did several of his players, that Thursday’s off day comes at a perfect time.
The six months of hype and the countless weeks of anticipation has equaled 29 minutes.
That’s how much Scottish striker Darren Mackie, who was Phoenix FC’s splash signing in September, has played through 10 Phoenix FC matches this season.
DENVER – Diamondbacks outfielder Adam Eaton felt more discomfort in his elbow and left his rehab assignment to return to Phoenix, where he visited with team physician Dr. Michael Lee.
Lee gave Eaton some encouraging news, telling him that he believed the discomfort was muscle-related rather than an issue with his ligament. But Eaton still was scheduled to undergo an MRI exam Wednesday to be certain.
Despite the ease with which Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney has continued to assemble a largely successful team with limited NHL money, we at The Heat Index have never envied his job.
And yet, here we are — during the second round of the playoffs — imagining what the Coyotes could look like in five months when the next season starts.
The job description for a Cardinals defensive end in 2013 will be different than it was the previous two seasons.
Just how different is a matter of opinion and perspective.
Arizona State baseball won’t be in the postseason very long, regardless of destination, if it plays anything like Tuesday night.
The No. 19 Sun Devils, perhaps down after losing a weekend series to Arizona, provided little resistance for a surging BYU in an 8-3 loss at Packard Stadium.
DENVER The higher the level, the better Diamondbacks prospect Archie Bradley pitches.
The right-hander turned in yet another dominant outing for Double-A Mobile on Saturday, giving up one run in six innings. His ERA with Mobile stands at 0.90 through four starts. He posted a 1.26 ERA in five starts with High-A Visalia before a promotion.
DENVER During a game last week, after the Diamondbacks’ Cliff Pennington was called out on strikes in the 10th inning on a pitch clearly outside of the strike zone, Diamondbacks broadcaster Bob Brenly sounded as if he’d had enough.
“I’m telling you,” Brenly said on the air, “you get into extra innings, you get into the late innings of a close ballgame, you don’t want the umpire to determine who wins a ballgame.”
Bad news for the Suns: Nerlens Noel almost definitely will not join them; Phoenix won one more game than Cleveland, the team that won the NBA draft lottery’s top pick; the lottery dropped the Suns from the fourth-worst record to the fifth overall pick in the June 27 draft.
Good news for the Suns: Noel is no superstar and will not join any team until December because of knee rehabilitation; this draft is such that the fifth pick might be of comparable quality to the first; the last time the Suns picked fifth, it was Rookie of the Year and Suns Ring of Honor member Walter Davis.
Rockies 5, Diamondbacks 4 (10)
Recap: Wilin Rosario’s walkoff single to right field drove home Carlos Gonzalez in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Rockies a 5-4 win on Tuesday night at Coors Field.
Gonzalez got things started with one out in the 10th by lining a double into right field off Diamondbacks reliever Matt Reynolds. The Diamondbacks then walked Troy Tulowitzki to bring up Rosario, who shot the first pitch he saw down the right-field line to end it.
The ongoing feud between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia, which started during the third round of The Players Championship, has taken an ugly twist.
On Monday, Garcia told reporters in England that Woods hasn’t been honest in 15 years. Garcia was on stage at the European Tour awards dinner Tuesday, where he was asked by Steve Sands of the Golf Channel, in jest, if he would be inviting Woods over for dinner during the U.S. Open. Garcia’s reply was shocking.
BOSTON — As expected, the Super Bowl is officially returning to California.
At their spring meeting on Tuesday, NFL owners awarded Super Bowl L in 2016 to the Bay Area and the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, ending what will be a 13-year drought for the state that has hosted 11 Super Bowls.
Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia don’t like each other, and they’re making no effort to disguise their feelings.
The verbal feuding began May 11 during the third round of The Players Championship. It resumed this week on both sides of the Atlantic when Woods offered a one-word answer if he thought about contacting Garcia to put the matter to rest.
Experience an Arizona Rattlers practice through the eyes of quarterback Nick Davila, receiver Kerry Reed and defensive back Virgil Gray
The Mercury hope to win its third WNBA title this season and general managers around the league believe the club will.
The Mercury were voted most likely to win this season’s league title in the 11th annual WNBA.com GM Survey, receiving 33 percent of votes, according to a WNBA release on Tuesday.
The Suns were not very good with basketballs this year so now they get to take their crack at ping-pong balls.
The projected prizes in this draft, albeit no sure things, come in the top three spots. That makes having the fourth-best draft lottery odds a bad fit for the drawing (5:25 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN).
Players from the 1992-93 season provide a personal update on what they are doing today:
– Charles Barkley: I want to be a GM. I’m going to get that. I’m not going to campaign for it. I’ve got three years left on my TV deal. I’ll do three more years, and then I’m done. If everything goes perfect, I’ll get a GM job before then, but I’m not in a rush. They (Turner broadcasting) have done some things for me. I like going out on the road and doing the games. That gave me a lot of energy this year. I really enjoyed doing that.
DENVER — Looking to examine an area of the club he called a “work in progress,” manager Kirk Gibson said he printed out a sheet detailing all of the Diamondbacks’ steal attempts so far this season.
It’s been an area that needs improvement. With just 15 steals in 29 attempts, the Diamondbacks have a 52 percent success rate, the worst in the majors. Most clubs aim for a rate between 75 and 80 percent.
DENVER — The rave reviews keep rolling in for Diamondbacks left-hander Pat Corbin.
He was called “nasty” in a tweet by Atlanta Braves legend Chipper Jones. Diamondbacks General Manager Kevin Towers said a scout told him Corbin was just a tick below Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, a Cy Young Award winner.
The easy part of life is understanding it backward. Richard Dumas complicated it by living life backward.
Two decades ago, Dumas found the kind of wealth and results on his job that others can only chase for most of their careers. He was a rising NBA star with a shot so soft and springs to loft. The prototypical small forward averaged 16 points as a Suns rookie and resuscitated championship hopes in Game 5 of the 1993 NBA Finals with a dazzling 25-point game against Scottie Pippen to postpone Chicago’s coronation.
While many of us have been reminiscing about the 1992-93 Suns NBA Finals season lately, another story has quietly unfolded almost 2,000 miles away in Toronto.
Reportedly, Tim Leiweke, the incoming CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which includes among its holdings the Toronto Raptors of the NBA, will replace the team’s President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo, possibly with Colangelo’s former assistant Masai Ujuri of the Denver Nuggets.
What do I remember most about covering the 1993 NBA playoffs and the Suns’ championship series in the Finals against the Chicago Bulls?
Well, as exciting as all the basketball was, I tend to look back and recall more of the social elements that came along with those assignments 20 years ago.
It’s funny how when we recall the big events in our lives, it’s often the little stuff that first pops into mind.
It’s the friend who drank too much at your wedding, the woman who danced funny at your folks’ 50th anniversary, the boss who called you out of your wife’s labor delivery room to ask who was going to write the Northern Arizona University football advance.
