Today, a Russian court upheld the nine-year sentence for WNBA player Brittney Griner. Nine years for a small amount of cannabis oil in her luggage.

Griner reportedly had to watch the proceedings via video link in the detention center where she has been imprisoned.

According to the New York Times, Griner will be sent to a penal colony to serve the rest of her sentence.

“Brittney has repeatedly taken responsibility and made clear that she never intended to break Russian laws,” the WNBA Players Association said in a statement. “While their legal system is very different from ours, there is no doubt that the original sentence she received was extreme, even for the Russian legal system. This appeal is further verification that BG is not just wrongfully detained — she is very clearly a hostage.”

Sadly, there is a resignation that sets in.

Griner’s family, the WNBA, and fans can petition President Joe Biden’s administration to negotiate for her release, but reports suggest the Russian government hasn’t countered the United State’s offer for her release. The details are not entirely public, but early reports suggest the U.S. was willing to trade imprisoned arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and another detained American, Paul Whelan.

Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico who has been negotiating on behalf of the imprisoned Americans called Griner’s judicial process, “largely shambolic” in a press conference. He also said he was cautiously optimistic the U.S. would be able to bring Griner and Whelan home before the end of the year. Let’s hope his optimism bears out.

Still, this is a power game. It’s easy to imagine Russian leader Vladimir Putin enjoying the idea of keeping an American women’s basketball star, one who has a wife and defies the traditional gender expectations he adheres to, locked away.

Putin must delight in the calls for Biden to do more. In the frustration of Griner’s teammates as they used the occasion of her birthday to speak her name, as NBA players call for their sister’s release.

With the college basketball season about to begin, Breanna Stewart tweeted again in support of Griner.

It’s looking like Griner’s milestones without freedom are going to start stacking up. Her 32nd birthday, Thanksgiving, perhaps Christmas. There have been reports that the Russian government has been difficult to negotiate with. The New York Times wrote last week that Griner is starting to lose hope.

A new poll of sports fans from Seton Hall reflects how complicated this issue is. Yes, Griner should be home, but travel abroad means being subject to the laws, and occasionally whims, of other nations. (Full disclosure, I am the executive director of the Center for Sports Media at Seton Hall.)

In the Seton Hall poll, people were evenly split as to whether Griner was imprisoned fairly given Russian law, but 62 percent of people said she was being used as a political pawn. At the same time, 45 percent of self-described avid sports fans said the U.S. had done enough to get Griner released, with 33 percent saying it hadn’t, and 22 percent saying they didn’t know.

Both of these things can be true. Griner can be a pawn, and the U.S. government can be working hard to have her released. The futility of those efforts may very well be the point for Russia, a high-profile failure of the American diplomatic process. If politics are messy, international relations are a Gordian Knot.

One poll question garnered a particularly interesting response. Asked if there should be a list of restricted countries when it comes to international sports competition, a plurality agreed at 50 percent. Among the general population, 28 percent said no and 22 percent had no opinion.

Certainly, that becomes more of an issue in women’s sports. We have seen tennis player Peng Shuai essentially detained before the Olympics when she accused a former Chinese official of harassment. More recently, Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi was celebrated by protesters for competing in South Korea without a hijab.

Iran has been roiled by protest in recent weeks as women have protested the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the “morality police” for her clothing. Like Peng, Rekabi later backtracked under pressure, saying that the lack of a hijab had been unintentional.

As much as women in sports have defined what their bodies can do, these events indicate that they are not as free as men who play sports. Where cultural and religious norms are more restrictive for women, they can likewise be for women who play sports.

The question has been asked, would an NBA player face the same treatment in a place like Russia? And theoretically, he could, but governments have recently shown themselves more willing to enforce their rules against women than men.

Is this fair to Griner? Absolutely not.

She is a reminder that rules can be enforced as much to punish individuals as to send a message. And in some cases, to remind everyone who wields control.

Being the Boston Celtic player to speak about Bill Russell on opening night, in front of the world, while in Boston, at the start of the first-ever NBA season in which the namesake of the Finals MVP trophy would not be alive is both a tremendous honor and responsibility. Fortunately, the Celtics had in their own locker room the ideal person to address the world — Jaylen Brown.

During the 2020 NBA bubble, the NBA relaxed its rules on players being required to stand for the national anthem. The Celtics took part, and before Brown took any questions from the media after scoring 30 points in a victory against the Portland Trail Blazers he had something that he wanted to get off of his chest.

“Angela Davis once said that racism is so dangerous not because of individual actors, because it’s deeply embedded in the apparatus,” Brown told the media. “I think about that quote a lot when I think about the national anthem which was written by Francis Scott Key, who was a slave owner.”

That’s why proactive measures should always be taken to attempt to root out racism. The very song written during a war in which America fought off intruders to hold onto its status as a sovereign nation, was written by a person who was holding human beings in bondage at that time. This song is still the anthem that plays to display ultimate American pride, more than 200 years later.

An astute observation from Brown shouldn’t be a surprise. Going into his freshman year at California he wasn’t only putting in work on his game. This top-five recruit was taking steps so that he would be able to enroll in a graduate-level course — Theoretical Foundations for the Cultural Studies of Sport and Education — once the school year began. Brown being so thoughtful and putting in so much work on the front lines for justice makes the fact that he is in business with Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — so disappointing.

Brown signed with Ye’s Donda Sports marketing firm this past summer. Recently, Ye has been in the news for making antisemitic comments at any given opportunity. It has gotten so bad that all of his mainstream social media accounts are locked and he was dropped by CAA on Monday and Adidas on Tuesday. On Monday, Brown said several times to The Boston Globe that he is against everything that Ye has been saying lately, but he also will not be leaving Donda Sports at this time.

Even before Ye started spewing antisemitic bile and wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt next to Candace Owens, there was no reason for Brown to sign with his sports marketing company. Donda Sports was started long after Ye said “slavery for 400 years, that sound like a choice.” That same day in the TMZ studio Ye “What about Chicago’ed” Van Lathan, who had rebuked him for making asinine, incoherent, and dangerous statements while being interviewed. Yet, Brown told The Globe that he signed with Donda Sports because “it represented education, it represented activism, disruption, it represented single-parent households, and a lot more people are involved in something like that.”

Nothing Ye has said in recent years has given off that he has any of those feelings in his heart. What he has publicly put into the world since he first wore that Make America Great Again hat is white supremacist rhetoric. As the years go by it gets worse and worse.

I find it hard to believe that Brown would give Ye’s buddy, Owens, the time of day. This woman sat in front of Congress and said, “Based on the hierarchy of what’s impacting minority Americans, if I had to make a list of 100 things, white nationalism would not make the list. White supremacy and white nationalism is not a problem that is harming Black America.”

That’s pretty much the exact opposite of what Brown said in the bubble back in 2020. Yet, Ye has spoken glowingly about Owens for years and now is about to purchase her husband’s struggling far right-wing social media network. She was there with Ye at the TMZ studios when he abandoned his race and hometown for everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. She was quiet when he was babbling nonsense about whatever self-actualization he believes he has achieved, but jumped in the conversation like Brown catching an alley-oop when he went on that absurd Black-on-Black crime rant.

The world can be an ugly place. There is a good chance that exploited child labor is sewing the clothes on your back, and mining the cobalt that makes your smartphone function. Soccer fans from every corner of the globe are going to watch the World Cup in Qatar, even though more than 6,500 migrant workers died while constructing the stadiums as of 2021, according to The Guardian.

In order to live, people at some point participate in the oppression and death of others. However, there is room to say no at some point. It is wholly unnecessary for Brown to do business with a company whose leader is preaching against everyone and everything that he is fighting for.

Ye might be in the middle of a manic episode. He has admitted to being bipolar, and while not all people who suffer from mental health issues say and do hurtful things there are also some who do. If Brown is friends with Ye and feels he needs some help, he should try his best to do so. But, by aligning their brands, Brown is doing great damage to his own. A brand that just last week was rightfully deemed fit to honor the life of one of the most honorable Americans to ever live.

Ben Simmons fouled out again Monday night. He’s fouled out of two of his first three games as a member of the Brooklyn Nets and has nearly as many fouls as points. So far, Simmons has posted 17 points, 14 fouls, 18 rebounds, and 21 assists in three games. This is the guy who was once touted as the “next” LeBron James — who at one point said Simmons could be better than him — coming out of LSU. Despite early accolades in his career Simmons is the most overrated No. 1 overall draft pick of the past 20 years, at best. At least? The most overrated player ever.

Simmons’ NBA career started on the wrong foot (no pun intended) as he missed his first year of 2016-17 with a foot injury. He debuted the following season, winning Rookie of the Year — since it was his official debut — and being named to the All-Rookie Team in ‘18. Ben’s first two active years were a success, and it looked like he was on a trajectory headed for stardom.

The former LSU Tiger — lest we forget Simmons failed to lead the team to the NCAA Tournament — peaked as a scorer in his second season, averaging just under 17 points per game alongside 8.8 rebounds and 7.7 assists. He’s declined little by little in each category since year two. Simmons sat out last season and was shipped away from Philadelphia to Brooklyn at February’s trade deadline.

When a player comes into any league with the kind of hype Simmons had, sometimes they can get the benefit of the doubt. The LeBron James comparisons with Simmons came during a time when the NBA had begun to look forward to the future. In the same way, they looked for a new face to replace Michael Jordan, the same thing happened with James. In a league built around star power, you need an heir apparent to the throne.

That torch should’ve been passed to Simmons by this point, but there’s no chance of it happening now. Sure, he’s been an All-Star, All-NBA, and All-Defensive player, which is fantastic. But can anyone honestly point out an aspect of Ben’s game that’s improved significantly since he entered the NBA? You can’t.

James continued to progress each year and added different facets to his game. The same goes for Magic Johnson, whom Simmons was also compared to early on. The former Sixer peaked in his second year and has only continued to fall off since then. That’s not just an opinion, it’s a fact.

He’s a player with all the talent in the world, but it seems Simmons is happier being a celebrity ball player than actually getting better on the court. Maybe it is something in his head. That I’d buy, and genuinely understand if that’s the case. That doesn’t change the fact that in seven years, you can’t name one part of Simmons’ game that is better now than when he played his first game in ‘17.

However, it’s not all Ben’s fault. Much of the blame goes to those who began to throw out comparisons to LeBron and Magic. That may have built an unreal level of expectation that Simmons was never going to live up to. Not because he didn’t have the talent but because it has never felt like he cares to be great. You could see Simmons’ talent two towns over without binoculars. That’s how gifted he is, but at a certain point, something inside needs to take over and push you past that.

Jordan was insanely talented coming out of college, yet no one projected him to be one of the greatest players of all time. By comparing Simmons to players like LeBron and Magic, that’s the pedestal he was placed upon. In many people’s opinions, these are two of the five greatest players the NBA has ever seen, and Simmons isn’t even top 15 in his own era.

This season is still young, and those first three games could be an example of knocking off some rust. Simmons hadn’t played NBA basketball in well over a year, so that’s to be expected. But fouling out in two of those games isn’t a good look. The worst part is his complaining about it after the game.

“It wasn’t a foul. He called it a foul, made a mistake. It is what it is,” Simmons said. “Really frustrating. But all I can do now is support my team from the bench. But fuck yeah, it’s frustrating. It’s not a foul. That was bullshit. It’s frustrating because it’s a late game, it’s the fourth quarter, it’s a physical close game. It’s the NBA. This is not college. It’s not high school. Some people are going to get hit, some people will bleed. It’s basketball.”

Brooklyn’s situation was already a mess, and it doesn’t look like Simmons will make things any easier for the Nets if he continues down this path.

Phil Kessel has never been here for your shit. Which might be one of the reasons he’s going to break the consecutive games streak by playing in his 990th straight game tonight for Vegas.

Maybe more than any other sport, hockey demands you care. Not just care, but care in a certain way, especially when you make the big money, which Kessel basically has ever since he went to Toronto. All the observers want to see you yelling on the bench at your teammates, or getting in scraps after the whistle simply for the sake of it, or calling guys out in the press when things aren’t going the team’s way. They need you to act like the guy in the 500-level, because hockey still clings to the ideal that those two things are the same. When you play in Toronto, these things get multiplied two or threefold., which Kessel still has to carry, nearly a decade later.

Phil Kessel never gave a shit about any of that. He didn’t care about appearances, or even his own appearance to hear some tell it, which only enraged those who want to see players act like fans even more. In his perfect world, Kessel would have been left alone to do his job which he loves. And read stories like this one, or this one, and it’s clear how much Kessel has always loved to play.

You’d have to love to play to go through 990 games straight. Something always hurts, something always doesn’t work the way it should. There’s no way to get through even that many NHL seasons without feeling something. You can’t float that much through a hockey game and continue to have your coach send you out there, or continue to produce the way Kessel has for his entire career (he’s one goal away from 400 and 42 points away from 1,000). You can’t just “do a job” for this long without a break if it were just a job. A desire has to be pushing you through all the nicks and pains and soreness and wear.

Perhaps what hockey hates most, especially those who cover it, is when they’re covering someone who’s clearly just smarter than them and doesn’t really care what they have to say. Oh sure, Kessel got a little prickly in Toronto during his time there. But who wouldn’t? The organization was run by morons. He was coached by someone who couldn’t make toast. All he heard was that the 181 goals he put up in six seasons didn’t matter because the rest of the team was such a mangled swamp thing. Phil just wanted to score goals, because that was his job and that’s what the Leafs paid him to do, and he did it, and all he got for it was to answer questions about how he wasn’t enough or didn’t care or was out of shape. Dude missed 12 games in six years there, and had to listen to fat asses like Steve Simmons question what shape he was in.

Kessel always had the last laugh in that he didn’t really care about the noise, and didn’t feel the need to bow down to that level to justify his play or salary. He truly had the last laugh when he showed up in Pittsburgh and was a major cog in the first repeat Cup champs the league had seen in 20 years or so. No one in Pittsburgh had any complaints, except for maybe Evgeni Malkin, who didn’t want to play on a line with Kessel, which eventually got Kessel shipped out to Arizona. But Kessel had his rings, and the Pens haven’t sniffed one without him.

It is perhaps a little damning of hockey that it took Kessel playing nearly 1,000 games straight or to be productive this long for opinion to swing on him. He’s a cancer survivor, a sharp and witty guy whom his teammates consistently love, and even after all these games he’s still a player. Maybe his numbers slowed in Arizona, but whose don’t? Kessel had to carry the baggage out of Toronto, where everything is louder and heavier and reverberates throughout the hockey world, as well as the Bruins and their fans’ delight that they won a Cup as soon as he left for Toronto, in addition to Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton being two of the three draft picks they got for him (strangely, two players Bruins fans then quickly soured on as well, and saw them punted out of town, too). None of that has much to do with Kessel himself, but it’s still attached to him.

And yet Kessel has kept showing up to work, kept playing, and seemingly kept getting the last laugh. Remember the woeful U.S. World Cup team of 2016 that was specifically built to take penalties against Canada? There was Kessel to rightly point out they’d gotten everything wrong. Again, the hockey world recoiling at a player who knows better than most.

But to merely describe Kessel as someone who just kept showing up is to do him a disservice. He remained one of the fastest players in the league for most of his career. You can’t score as many goals as he did without knowing where to be, and his sneaky quick release has always fooled goaltenders. He also can’t be derided as someone who didn’t show up when it mattered, as his 81 points in 94 playoff games will attest, as well as piling up 45 points in Pittsburgh’s two Cup runs. It’s not his fault that Toronto could almost never provide games that mattered, nor did Arizona.

Perhaps what really rankled the grizzled hockey cognoscenti is that Kessel’s dry wit and lack of need to feed them the chum they crave is that it always felt like he knew more than they did. He probably does. Here he is, about to set the consecutive games record, which in itself is something of the ultimate last laugh. He was called just about everything under the sun, and yet he’s still here, still playing, still loving it, and now everyone else has run out of things to say. He’s a champion, he’ll be a Hall of Famer, and he’ll have his own record for a while. Phil Kessel won, in just about every way.

The NFL finally trying college offenses and mobile QBs after snubbing its nose at them for decades is like praising your child for going diaper-free at 25 years old. Not only was it long overdue, but the negligence is concerning. All of these NFL writers love to tout the innovation from this new generation of coaches like football hasn’t been played on Saturdays longer than it’s been played on Sundays.

Even when an NFL GM would take a risk with a quarterback who didn’t fit the 6-foot-4 statuesque pocket passer mold, they’d still try to force a round peg into a square hole of a system, and then blame the player for not being one of like 40 guys in the history of the league who’ve been able to win a Super Bowl while staying within the confines of the pocket.

There have been ways to scheme receivers open or make defenses play 11-v-11 in the run game for decades, and while the triple option or wishbone offenses aren’t going to work verbatim in the pros with those levels of athletes, the principles can be applied. Daniel Jones didn’t look like an NFL player running whatever the fuck Joe Judge called. However, under Brian Daboll, the Giants have used a mix of read option and run-heavy roll-out packages to fit his strengths.

He’s not durable or elusive enough to carry the ball as much as Lamar Jackson, but New York has found a way to get easy yards in the QB run game off of play-action that’s more than just naked bootlegs. (Though the bootlegs did work relentlessly against the Bears in the first half of that game.)

Look at the way the Atlanta Falcons are staying competitive by using Marcus Mariota in a way that values his arm and legs. Arthur Smith’s team is 12th in the league in scoring despite a bottom-six offense yardage-wise.

The Colts are moving on from Matt Ryan, who might be the king of outdated software under center, in favor of the more mobile Sam Ehlinger, and it’s way overdue. Indy is in the middle of the pack as far as total offense yet 30th in points per game. Atlanta is fourth in red zone scoring percentage, putting six on the board 68 percent of the time, while the Colts are tied for 22nd, only converting 50 percent of their trips inside the 20 into TDs (via TeamRankings).

That has a lot to do with the running game, the pressure Mariota puts on defenses to account for everyone, and trying more than a five-wide QB draw. That call only works when you have a team on its heels, or Josh Allen.

In absolutely no way am I saying Ehlinger is the answer, especially if Frank Reich uses him the same way as Ryan with the assumption that he’ll make plays with his legs when the protection breaks down. Ideally, every quarterback will go through his progressions before taking off, and only use mobility when necessary. That’s a disservice to their athleticism though.

Jalen Hurts isn’t out there running Baltimore’s system. When Philly does call run plays for him, they’re sprinkled in to keep opposing teams guessing and honest. It’s an added layer of “Oh shit” that you don’t realize is happening until Hurts has already broken contain and is five yards downfield.

Jones had 107 yards on the ground against Jacksonville, and a lot of that came due to the Jags’ fear of Saquon Barkley. While no one expects Dimes to leave a safety gasping for air in the open field like Lamar, I’ve been watching less mobile guys get loose on those same keepers in college for more than a decade.

It’s frankly embarrassing that NFL franchises are just now realizing that they can pick and choose specific college plays as opposed to the full-fledged system. You don’t have to give Steve Spurrier or Urban Meyer the keys to the organization to try read option or pass-happy tactics. However, you should always explore aspects of successful offenses. If it’s well designed, NBA coaches will use a side out-of-bounds play regardless of what level of basketball it came from.

And the amount of irony in Ehlinger being the face of the Colts’ pivot to a “scrambling” quarterback is off the charts. He was an effective runner at Texas and had some productive seasons, even amassing 661 yards in his junior year. That said, I would never describe him as explosive.

If we’re now going to start experimenting with malleable playbooks that can conform to the curvatures of any quarterback’s frame, it’s time to start doing that with every signal-caller, and not telling him to change positions. It’s easier to score in college football for a variety of reasons — the hashes are wider, the competition is worse, etc. There are also a ton of creative minds who tailor their offenses around who’s under center.

It’s not fucking rocket science, so the NFL shouldn’t be getting flowers like they cured cancer.

There has been reason for NFL analysts and fans far and wide to complain about the Chicago Bears roster since offseason workouts began.

The offensive line did not make a marked improvement and the Bears decided to add low-priced veterans to the receiving corps. Sure, the new front office took care of salary cap issues — but not in a way to provide much reassurance to fans. Changes were needed and one of those was to send Khalil Mack away for an extra 2022 second-round draft pick. However, that return wasn’t used on players to help Justin Fields.

Franchises that selected QBs atop the draft generally do more to support their young signal-caller. Instead, the Bears are starting a rookie left tackle who was a fifth-round selection, and the veteran wide receivers that they added have never sniffed 1,000 receiving yards in a season.

The worst team in the league was a title the Bears appeared worthy of both in the preseason and after four 2022 regular-season losses. However, through seven games they are 3-4 with an outside chance at the playoffs in an NFC that has only two consensus good teams — the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. After last night’s 33-14 win on the road against the New England Patriots — the Bears’ first win against Bill Belichick since 2000 — maybe Ryan Poles’ front office does have the team on the right track.

Spending both of their 2022 second-round picks on defensive backs was not a popular move, but during the plays that weren’t one of Robert Quinn’s franchise record 18.5 sacks in 2021, the pass defense struggled. The reinforcements in the secondary have made that position group one of the strengths of the team. Even though standout corner Jaylon Johnson has missed four games the Bears’ defense has not yet surrendered 30 points or 200 passing yards in a single contest in 2022.

Still, none of that addressed the issues on Chicago’s struggling offense. The line needed to be better in pass protection and the pass catchers needed to make Fields’ life easier by putting themselves in a position to make big plays.

There was very little that the Bears could do to overhaul their offense this past offseason with limited salary cap space. Chicago owed more than $56 million in dead money. One addition that it tried to make was adding Buffalo Bills’ restricted free agent interior offensive lineman Ryan Bates, but the Bears’ offer was matched. They brought in Lucas Patrick from the Green Bay Packers to help their offensive line, but injuries have plagued him throughout the year. He finally started at center against the Patriots and was carted off of the field in the first half. For wide receiver depth, they added Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, N’Keal Harry — who played in his first game of the season on Monday night — and Byron Pringle, who is currently on injured reserve.

This is nowhere near the offensive talent that Jalen Hurts is working with in Philadelphia, but the Bears do have a better rushing attack than the undefeated Eagles. They’re ranked fourth in the NFL in yards per carry and are the leaders in total rushing yards. And while Fields isn’t in the most envious of situations in terms of pass blockers and catchers, at least the team is clearly his this season. There is no Andy Dalton hogging preseason practice snaps or Matt Nagy refusing to alter his offense to help Fields. While not everything has worked, he is at the front of the coaching staff’s mind at all times. Against the Patriots, Chicago ran the most Fields-friendly offense that they have this season, and, for once he played four strong quarters of football. The result was a big road win on primetime.

Now, not only are the Bears still in the playoff hunt, but they will have somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million in cap space this offseason — the most in the NFL. For all of the growing pains that Fields is going through this season, he can go through them during one in which there wasn’t much expected from Chicago. Then, next year, with all of that cap space and a pick in the first round of the draft, Fields might be able to hit the easy button.

For most of this season, the Bears have been painful to watch. While fans have needed to put cold steaks over their eyes after many games, 2022 is far from over and 2023 is so bright it might require sunglasses.

The Bears weren’t in a position to be like the Eagles and Bills who have built juggernauts around their young quarterbacks. Instead, the Bears decided to take a step back. That step may end up costing them very little this season, and result in a massive profit come this time next year.