Carolina Panthers’ do-it-all back Christian McCaffrey was sent packing Thursday nightt to the San Francisco 49ers for a second-, third- and fourth-round picks in 2023 and a fifth-round pick in 2024, first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

The Panthers all but announced McCaffrey’s departure by thanking him on Twitter.

It was reported last week that the Panthers, who have gotten off to a dreadful start to the 2022 season, were open to dealing their best player after firing their head coach Matt Rhule, and shipping disgruntled receiver Robbie Anderson to the Arizona Cardinals.

At 1-5, the Panthers have been brutal so far this year. After Sunday’s 24-10 loss to the Los Angeles Rams McCaffery said, “All I want to do is win.” With the deal, McCaffrey returns to the Bay Area, where he starred at Stanford, and joins a San Francisco 49ers team that is 3-3, yet tied atop the NFC West with the Rams and Seattle Seahawks.

Since being drafted by the Panthers with the 8th pick of the 2017 NFL Draft, McCaffrey has been one of the most productive backs in the NFL, both running the ball and as a pass catcher. In 2019, his third season, he rushed surpassed 1,000 yards rushing (1,035) and receiving (1,005), becoming only the third player in NFL history to do so. But injuries have hampered his career since, limiting him to just three games in 2020 and seven in 2021. So far this season, McCaffrey has played in all six Panthers games, and according to ESPN, has played in 85 percent of the team’s snaps.

McCaffrey’s arrival in San Fran helps settle a running game that moved receiver Deebo Samuel into the backfield and unites him with the coach who nearly drafted him in 2017 in Kyle Shanhan. The McCaffrey-Shanahan families have deep ties as Christian’s father Ed McCaffrey played receiver for Kyle’s dad Mike Shanahan with the Denver Broncos in the 1990s, winning Super Bowls in the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.

The NFL owners meetings aren’t usually so entertaining.

Usually, you have more of a united front around a multi-billion dollar business and one of the last cultural unifiers in a fractured landscape, but this year you have Colts owner Jim Irsay saying there might be merit in ousting Washington owner Dan Snyder, and Dallas owner Jerry Jones reportedly telling newlywed and Patriots owner Bob Kraft, “Don’t fuck with me” over commissioner Roger Goodell’s executive pay package.

Goodell’s pay, ESPN reports, was $128 million for 2020 and 2021.

If you added Botox and a yacht, it could be the vacation episode of the Real Owners of the NFL. It’s one dramatically tossed glass of a vintage red away from a season finale.

First of all, do a quick search for “Irsay” and “condo” to see how extraordinary it must be to have him call out another owner for being bad for the league. The NFL is filled with owners whose closets are crowded with skeletons.

But aside from the tragicomedy, the reports from the owner meetings, and an incredible piece of reporting from ESPN’s Don Van Natta, Seth Wickersham and Tisha Thompson, there is a larger question facing the NFL at this moment.

Why would anyone cooperate with an NFL investigation?

“I think this is going to tell women affiliated with the NFL is, you can’t trust the league to handle anything appropriately, especially if Roger Goodell is in charge,” said Lisa Banks, an attorney representing some of the women in the investigation into workplace harassment at the Washington team.

Between the issues that Dan Snyder is accused of, and for an extensive rundown please refer to this piece from Stephen Knox, and the absolute inadequacy of reporting in the Deshaun Watson investigation, the NFL has gone from a post-Ray Rice commitment to personal discipline to being accused of having victim information from the Snyder investigation get back to Snyder, and the possibility that it was used to hire private investigators against them. Snyder has denied any wrongdoing.

Banks’ law firm released a letter on Tuesday threatening a lawsuit if that had been found to have taken place.

The letter said that “a number of Banks’ and (Debra) Katz’s clients faced harassment, retaliation, and public disparagement after participating in the Wilkinson investigation.”

NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy released a statement that denied that any information leaked:

“We have said repeatedly that we are committed to protecting the anonymity of all witnesses who participated in the Wilkinson investigation. The NFL did not share their names with the Commanders and their lawyers. The allegation is false. Ms. (Beth) Wilkinson and her firm kept their pledge to the witnesses and did not share their identities with the Commissioner or League staff other than the limited number of participants who were willing to be identified.”

The NFL released the statement, but, according to Banks, no one in the league offices has actually responded to Banks or her firm.

Banks said there were people at the NFL who she has dealt with in good faith, but that, in the Snyder case, they appeared to be overruled. Goodell said he wasn’t going to release the report on Snyder in order to protect Banks’ clients, but Banks and her clients have repeatedly demanded a public accounting. The person Goodell is really protecting with this is, of course, Snyder.

“If Dan Snyder is ultimately held accountable, it’ll be despite the NFL, not because of the NFL,” Banks said.

Ultimately, Goodell asked investigator Beth Wilkinson to not write a report, and to orally brief him on the findings. Hiding the findings may be a bad idea if the goal is institutional change, but if not, it saves the league from having to find a toilet to flush all the paper down.

If the NFL wanted to change, we’d have had a sign by now. It was all the way back in the Ray Rice era, after the 2014 revised personal conduct policy allowed for the league to investigate and apply penalties, even if there were no formal legal charges, that there was a question floating around the league offices: How could the league do internal investigations into these situations if the victims (and to be fair they were almost always women) wouldn’t talk to the NFL?

The league attempted to build trust by hiring capable people to do the investigations themselves.

But there isn’t a lot of money in actually holding employees accountable, and certainly not when it comes to owners. Over the most recent years, we’ve seen that the best of intentions from that era have been functionally abandoned in high-profile cases. Take Watson’s case, where Jenny Vrentas’ reporting in The New York Times found 66 massage therapists who were potentially visited by the then-Texans quarterback. The NFL meanwhile, interviewed only 12 of the 24 therapists who filed suits against Watson, and only detailed the findings of four.

Imagine being so overwhelmed by the number of massage therapists who may have been inappropriately touched, and worse, that you couldn’t possibly schedule them all for a visit?

The NFL is a business that doesn’t want to be a workplace.

“Corporate America has come much further since the advent of the Me Too era than many of the sports leagues,” Banks said.

Even so, she added, the NFL trailed even farther.

Listen, that $128 million isn’t free. Goodell works hard for that compensation package, and you’d think Jerry “Party Bus” Jones would see the value for Goodell’s service.

J.J. Redick is Exhibit A why you can’t trust most former athletes to tell you the truth.

For sure, they have insight into their games that trained sportswriters don’t have. They’ve been out there; reporters haven’t. There’s simply no argument.

Still, most of the time, you will always get a more honest take or opinion about what’s going on from a reporter or writer.

Many athletes are compromised, and have so many conflicts of interest that they can’t keep it real with the fans.

They have played with a player they are critiquing. They played for an organization in the past. Their agent represents a player that should be blasted. They went to the same college or belong to the same fraternity.

The list of reasons why they will sell the fans down the river is too long to list even on the internet.

Often, they will look into the TV camera and flat-out lie to you about what you witnessed seen with your own eyes.

It’s embarrassing.

On Wednesday on ESPN, Redick delivered the worst take in sports TV history after the NBA opened its season on Tuesday night.

Instead of breaking down what’s wrong with the Los Angeles Lakers after their loss to the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors, he chose to do a ridiculous public service announcement that was just plain dumb.

“We should treat (the Lakers) season as a celebration of LeBron’s individual greatness. … Spending all day, every day talking about their deficiencies, that’s not great.”

And with that, Redick should have quit his job on the spot and walked off the set.

In other words, Redick said he doesn’t want to do his job — analyze games. He’s supposed to tell fans at home what happened, and what can be done to correct things moving forward. It was mind-boggling. After one game, he wrote off the season. Did he even think about the rest of the Lakers and the Lakers fans?

What if L.A. wins its next five games? Comical.

There’s plenty of time to talk about James when he does pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time scorer. And there will be plenty of fanfare about the historic moment.

But to throw the towel in on the season after one loss is ludicrous.

In his take, we didn’t hear Redick say he would return all the Lakers’ season ticket money back to fans. His take is why there’s such a turnover among former athletes on TV. They eventually weed themselves out of the business because they can’t offer an honest take.

Charles Barkley is the ultimate exception to the rule. He’s as honest as they come and that’s why so many players dislike the former NBA star.

Barkley has no agenda. He’s not out to protect anyone. He watches what’s happening in The Association and puts it all out on the table.

Best of all, he takes on the biggest and best players. No one is spared. Last season, he called Lakers star Anthony Davis “street clothes” because he’s always injured.

Once, on TNT, after just a horrible half of basketball, Barkley told viewers that the NBA, his league, was “unwatchable.”

It was gold, honest. It was refreshing.

Most would never bash the product, be that honest. After all, they would be afraid that the league would come down on them and potentially remove them from their gig for being negative.

It happens all the time in sports. The analysts and announcers are all in bed with the teams and leagues. Most of the talk is muted, sugar-coated.

You almost never hear national announcers doing NFL games bash coaches for poor game plans or openly say that a player made a bad play or cost their team the game.

It’s not about ripping people just to rip people. It’s about an honest take on the game.

People just want an honest take. If peeps just wanted only the good, team websites would be popular with fans. But they aren’t because fans understand that most are just PR tools. You won’t read anything negative on those sites no matter how poorly a team plays.

Fans would rather read the truth about their teams — even if it’s brutal to hear.

When you hear guys like Draymond Green talk about the new media, it’s code for athletes covering themselves. Basically, it’s athletes covering for each other.

The traditional media would have been out of business a long time ago if fans only respected the opinions of people who played the game.

Fans are smarter than that. Otherwise, they would have thrown in the towel on Redick’s career after he averaged six points during his rookie season in Orlando.

The NBA world finally got its first look at the Brooklyn Nets’ new big three, and most are already disgusted with the return they’ve yielded. It was only the first game of the season, but if lack of motivation (LOM) were a stock, this team would rise in a bullish market. Brooklyn came out on its opening night at home and lost 130-108 to the New Orleans Pelicans.

If you’re a betting person, don’t waste your time or money on this team. Based on the past two seasons, all the Nets will do is disappoint. But it’s astonishing that even with this knowledge, some prominent sports analysts and personalities insist on choosing Brooklyn to make a run to the NBA Finals. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is holding onto this fairytale (like many others) where the Nets face the Golden State Warriors for the championship.

Whatever kind of coffee Smith is drinking, he should probably cut that back by half the amount if he really believes the Nets are making it out of the Eastern Conference. Maybe SAS should take his own advice and “stay off the weeeeeed.” Smith needs to stay away from whatever continues to encourage him to pick the Nets.

Smith also believes anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Kyrie Irving will be a leading candidate for league MVP this year. SAS made that comment on Tuesday morning’s edition of “First Take,” then Irving promptly went out Wednesday night and shot 6-for-19 (31 percent) and 0-for-6 from three-point range in a 15-point losing performance. Irving has never even received an MVP vote heading into his 12th season. Good luck with that prediction.

One bright spot for the team was the debut of Ben Simmons in a Nets uniform. When I say bright spot, I’m only referring to the fact that he suited up and played. Anything he did during his time on the floor is likely already forgotten by fans, and rightfully so. Simmons finished the game with more fouls than points, rebounds, and assists. Simmons ended the game with four points, five rebounds, five assists, and six fouls. Yes, Simmons fouled out of his first game back after playing just 23 minutes. Looks like Draymond Green has some competition for triple-singles king in The Association.

Kevin Durant did his usual thing on the court, shooting over 52 percent from the field, scoring 32 points, and grabbing three rebounds — and the Nets still lost by a lot. Let’s face it, this team does not have a leader. Durant isn’t a natural-born leader, Irving wants to lead, but no one in their right mind wants to follow, and Simmons….well, he’s just Ben. He’s just happy to be out of Philadelphia.

This team is going nowhere, and they’re in a hurry to get there. Forget the Finals. Let’s see them get out of the first round of the playoffs this year. Hell, win a playoff game. Milwaukee, Boston, Philly, and maybe even Chicago and Toronto are better teams than Brooklyn. You might even be able to throw Miami in that grouping again this season. Those teams may not have the overall “star power,” but we see where that’s taken the Nets thus far. 

• Warning: This story includes allegation of sexual coercion of a minor and may be disturbing

From the initial accusation against Tampa Bay Lightning’s Ian Cole for sexual misconduct and abuse until the conclusion of the NHL’s investigation, one week passed. There were seven full days from claims from Twitter user @emily_smith3333, a likely alias to protect her real name, that surfaced on Oct. 7 to the NHL’s statement finding “no evidence to substantiate the allegations” last Saturday. It took the NHL a little over one week to get to the bottom of the matter before his suspension was reversed. The only public outreach from the NHL on the matter was a tweet from the league’s official account, posted below, on Friday. The NHL’s statement on the investigation into Cole mentions multiple ways the league tried to contact the accuser.

Ms. Smith claims she was groomed by Cole for four years, starting when she was a minor. Smith claims that Cole was aware she was in high school when he pursued a relationship with her. She also alleges that Cole pressured her into sexual situations without her consent. There’s an additional accusation of Cole bragging about his relationship with Smith to teammates. Whether anyone from that scenario reported it to the league needed to be looked into as well, and we’re assuming all this was done thoroughly over seven full days? And that’s assuming the NHL didn’t have prior knowledge about allegations against Cole and never investigated them. The tweet not only accuses Cole of sexual misconduct with Ms. Smith (he denies the allegations), but she also claims the 13-year NHL veteran was involved with another minor as well.

The legitimacy of the investigation into Cole’s alleged behavior is questionable. Deadspin has made multiple attempts to get comment from both the NHL and the Lightning on the length of the Cole investigation with no response as of this posting. Even the most cut-and-dry cases should take the proper time to vet all information. This isn’t as simple as a speed camera and paying a small fine, whereas radars can check how fast anyone is driving. Multiple serious allegations were leveled against Cole. Unless the NHL is beyond a doubt sure all of Smith’s claims are grandiose bullshit, Cole shouldn’t be near the Lightning team facilities right now. And if the claims have tangible proof of zero factual evidence, where are any countermeasures? That’s what happened in Georgia Tech men’s basketball head coach Josh Paster’s case, per ESPN. Wishing the issue goes away by not drawing more attention to it would be a horrible strategy if Cole’s innocent, with a major emphasis on “if.”

Simple questions the NHL needs to answer deserve to be public information. Let’s start with this: Did the league ask Cole to disclose all possible identities of Emily Smith? Taking the Twitter statement at face value should heavily narrow those choices. The number of 4-year relationships Cole’s had almost assuredly doesn’t exceed single digits. If Cole didn’t provide any names, not accepting that answer is the only response. The impression coming off of this investigation, which matters if reality isn’t clear, is that the NHL didn’t give Cole’s case the proper due diligence.

Giving the Lightning, the NHL, or any other participating team the benefit of the doubt here is foolish. Yes, not every sexual assault claim is found to be truthful or will lead to prosecution from alleged abusers or libelous accusers. What I’m taking exception with is hockey’s repeated pattern of not giving a shit about women, with the latest example being the probe into Cole lasting nine days at a maximum. The NHL saw the promotion of several women into assistant general manager positions this offseason, as if that negates toning down years of sexual misconduct allegations levied against its players. Let’s start with Patrick Kane, Jake Virtanen, Evander Kane, Hockey Canada at large, and others. Both Patrick Kane and Evander Kane have denied all wrongdoing, while Virtanen admitted to having a sexual relationship with his accuser, but denied forcing himself on her. Virtanen was found not guilty. The case against Evander Kane was adjourned and dismissed after he pleaded not guilty. Patrick Kane didn’t have charges brought against him.

There are bad apples in every group, absolutely. Conducting solely a week-long investigation into all the claims made by Ms. Smith looks ludicrous. Resorting to a public tweet asking for a direct message from her account is beyond comprehension.

The battle of La La land renews Thursday night when the Clippers take on the Lakers for the first time this season. This has recently been a critical matchup in the NBA, especially in Los Angeles. But reports have already surfaced that Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, who’s returning from an ACL tear that forced him to miss all of last year, could come off the bench to begin the season as a way to “manage” his minutes.

That’s not an issue, as many players who return from more severe injuries are on a minutes restriction when they return to action. But let’s be honest for a second. We know where this is going to lead. Leonard has been the poster child of load management and once played for load management’s poster team, the San Antonio Spurs. But hey, if you can get away with it then do what you need to do. I’m not begrudging Leonard for doing what he’s been allowed to do for years.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver comes out every year and talks about managing players’ minutes, but nothing has changed. We constantly hear about how today’s athletes are so much bigger, faster, stronger, and more skilled in the NBA. Yet, no one seems to care about playing an entire 82-game schedule.

In fairness, it isn’t every player, but load management usually comes up with star players, who have the ability and freedom to pick and choose when they play. But that’s who fans go to see — the stars in the NBA. Over the past few years, a shortened NBA season has been thrown around, and Commissioner Silver addressed that over the summer.

“I’m not looking to shorten the season, but it’s a conversation we should all have,” Silver acknowledged. “What’s optimal in terms of a number of games on a player’s body? Let’s be

realistic about that.”

Sure, it’s a conversation that needs to happen, but unless the NBA can continue to get the same money from their T.V. partners, it won’t happen anytime soon. Professional sports is still a business, and the association is just trying to make a few billion bucks like anyone else. I believe the commissioner wants to do away with load management, but we’re so far along at this point it’ll be tough.

A couple of years ago, the league added the play-in tournament as a purgatory-like setup between the actual playoffs and hitting Cancun in April. So far, the play-in has provided some exciting moments, like LeBron James vs. Stephen Curry two tournaments ago, but it’s nothing more than a money grab. Play-in teams have little hope of advancing past the first round once in the playoffs.

Now the NBA is looking into adding a midseason tournament on top of making the play-in a mainstay. Another attempt at more revenue is fine, but none of this feels like it will incentivize players to play more. Even if you remove 10 games from the regular season schedule and add this tournament, that doesn’t create much rest time. It depends on how many teams are in this tournament, although it sounds like a bandaid with dollar signs all over it.

Silver and the league’s office don’t have a clue about how to tackle this load management issue. The bottom line is that he’s let it happen far too long, and turning back now is nearly impossible. I don’t see the NBA reducing the regular season schedule by more than 12-15 games. They’d lose too much money in that process. But you can’t talk about taking a few games away only to add an in-season tournament like these guys are back in college or high school.

For PR purposes, Silver probably has to speak out against it publicly and act tough. Still, in reality, anyone who follows this league closely knows who runs it. It’s called a players’ league for a reason. When Robert Sarver was accused of throwing stereotypical slurs at nearly every minority group in America, Silver acted like there was little to “nothing” he could do. The players had to speak up, and that got the ball rolling. Now, Sarver is on his way out. In 2014, players threatened to boycott after a Donald Sterling recording leaked, in which Sterling said he didn’t want his girlfriend bringing black people to games, before Silver banned him and forced him to sell the Clippers.

However, in this situation, Silver will need to stand on his own two feet to find a way to rid the league of load management. Players want this, and many have adopted it as a regular part of their regimen during the season. Although it’s not just the players. Many teams seemingly encourage it, taking a page from the San Antonio Spurs playbook.

Silver has expressed his thoughts on the origins of load managing:

“There’s nothing more frustrating also for our fans than having players, frankly, who aren’t injured following some program schedule for rest. I’m looking at [Spurs executive] R.C. [Buford], you started this all. That isn’t clear, at least to me. Whether it’s serving a useful purpose. So figuring out a way to create that right healthy balance.”

Silver knows the deal, and he knows coaches, general managers, and owners are just as much to blame as the players. If the commissioner really wants to stop this, he probably could. If he cares about the fans’ enjoyment of the game, he’ll step up to the plate and get this worked out. Otherwise, it’s time to quit talking about it and accept this as the league’s reality. 

While often depicted, lamented, and sanctified as liberating, hope can also be a virus. It can rot rationality from the inside. It can lead to danger, injury, and death. As Ellis Boyd Redding, best known by his friends and fellow convicts at Shawshank State Prison as Red, once said… “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Throughout the decades, NBA fans have seen it all too often. Memories of Chris Washburn, Kwame Brown, and Sam Bowie still haunt the hallowed halls of the franchises that selected them. In the modern era, Derrick Williams, Hasheem Thabeet, Greg Oden, and Anthony Bennett have become just as forgotten to neophyte fans born after the turn of the millenium. And yes, many of these names were snakebit by injury, or simply by being drafted by the wrong team. Yet, one slot above or below could have changed the entire fate of many a lottery pick.

Like former Knick Kevin Knox, others showed promise for a season before fading into obscurity. Some went as far as two or three, like Michael Beasley. All were selected on the fumes of hope. Hope was placed on these young players’ backs like a target, praying they would individually change the course of their respective team’s history. Turn bleakness bright, or make sorrow soar. Hope can be a hell of a drug.

Such dreams are only reserved for the sure thing. The NBA fan base at large, meaning worldwide, only dares utter the phrase for players like LeBron James, Zion Williamson, Lamelo Ball, Ja Morant, and currently, Victor Wembanyama. Before being drafted, none of Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić, or Giannis Antetokounmpo were sure bets. In the modern era, perhaps no team has had more lottery luck than the Cleveland Cavaliers. First, LeBron James. Then Kyrie Irving. Yea, the Cavs squandered that Bennett pick, but they also drafted, then flipped Andrew Wiggins for Kevin Love. In last year’s draft, the Cavs once again got lucky and drafted a player worthy of the gamble on hope. His name is Evan Mobley.

At just 20 years old, Mobley delivered a dominant rookie year for the Cavs at seven feet tall with a 7-foot-4 wingspan. It all began in high school when Mobley won California Player of the Year as a junior and senior. He averaged 18 ppg and 2.7 blocks as a senior, making him a top-three national recruit, going as high as No. 1 in ESPN’s rankings. After choosing USC, he delivered prodigy-like numbers of 16.4 ppg and 2.9 bpg, earning Pac-12 Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Freshman of the Year. The last collegiate player to hit those high standards? Kentucky’s Anthony Davis — a champion and newly minted Top 75 Player of all-time.

When Mobley was being interviewed on draft night, he was asked what skill he would bring to the NBA as a rookie. His answer was simple, yet rare for a projected top-three pick — defense. Most eager rookies cite their off-the-dribble offense, IQ, leadership, or DAWG mentality when asked. But Mobley is not like other highly/touted prospects. He moves quietly, and subtly, but when he plays, he smacks you in the mouth, metaphorically speaking of course. Sound familiar? Tim Duncan was the same. Mobley is unique in his ability to switch on all five positions. He has the lateral footwork to stay with attacking guards, the wing space to sag off drives and close out on shooters, and the balance to recover on high-octane guards with the ball on a string. His ability to outjump driving bigs, simply off of standing two feet, puts him in elite company. The last rookie to do this? Duncan in 1998. Most rim-protection bigs can only meet their opponent mid-air with a running start. Mobley can stay grounded, avoiding fouls, flowing like water to whoever has the ball before slapping the rock into the stands off a jump.

It was no surprise when he went third overall last summer to Cleveland. After breaking up the LeBron James-led championship roster, the Cavs overcame the usual decade-long period of depravity. But losing LeBron to free agency in 2018 put them right back amid lottery luck, landing Collin Sexton with the 8th pick in 2018 (who would be used this summer in a trade to land Donovan Mitchell), current All-Star Darius Garland with the 5th pick in 2019, and taking elite perimeter defender Issac Okorro with the 5th pick in the 2020 Draft. They also acquired Jarrett Allen in a trade two seasons ago, who blossomed into an All-Star last year. So when they selected Mobley, he entered a stable situation that allowed him to utilize his elite defensive instincts right off the bat, while having the grace not to be an immediate savior.

In year one of their pairing, Mobley and Allen developed into one of the elite defensive frontcourt duos in the NBA, becoming essential to the Cavaliers’ return to the playoffs. He cemented his rookie season averaging: 15 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 2.5 APG, and 1.7 BPG on 51 percent shooting. This earned Mobley First-Team All-Rookie honors. His blocks per game average tied him for the fifth-highest in the league, and his 115 blocks were good enough for eighth best. As a rookie, his defensive rating of 107.3 placed him in the Top 20 players in the league. Even more impressive, it was the highest placement for a rookie in defensive ratings since LeBron ranked seventh in 2003. So, about that hope, it’s obvious Mobley was one of the rare immediate-impact rookies. But can he be more? Can he achieve greatness in a city that has only had it once with LeBron?

To find out, let’s return to Duncan, who Mobley mirrors as a willing and skilled passer. Mobley is a deadly short-roll passer while equally capable of quick-thinking give-and-go, which made for an easy high/low game with teammate Allen. He anticipates reads better than most bigs but will need to tighten his handle and gather on drives to unlock another level. He’s already comfortable utilizing his size, but needs to sharpen his on-ball/off-ball scoring. Once he does, he will become unstoppable. The Cavs are full of ball-dominant guards, but Mobley will need chances to have the ball in his hands to take advantage of his passing and intermediate game. Adjustments will need to happen this season, but all the pieces are there for Mobley to become the best player on a team with three other All-Stars.

Mobley is an anomaly because he’s barely stretching the surface of his talent. So much of what he has been able to accomplish defensively is on his rare combination of athleticism and instinct. But much of his offensive game is still raw. In college, the knock was his 30 percent shooting from 3-point range. He was even worse his rookie year, averaging a paltry 25 percent. He hasn’t been much better inside the arc, hitting 33 percent of shots outside of 15 feet. He shot 41.2 percent on short mid-range jumpers, counting anything between the restricted area and inside the free-throw line.

His true shooting percentage of 54.9 was two points below the league average of 56.6. Once he speeds up his release off the bounce and in catch-and-shoot opportunities, he will improve. The Cavs employed a ton of double-drag screens last season, where Mobley worked out of the high post in dribble-handoff scenarios. He needs to work on popping out of those screens and drilling 3s when he’s involved in that kind of action. He has a lot to work on offensively, but his size and passing skills give him a great floor to build upon. In his first season, he developed a fadeaway from the elbow, a right-handed hook shot, and the upper-body width to bang in the paint while jockeying for position. While he lacks the bulk to get what he wants down low, he gets by with body control and a soft touch around the rim.

When it comes to how he plays with his fellow starters, he’s honed an excellent two-man game with Garland last season in the pick-and-roll, showing off a forward push shot as the roll man. Playing next to an elite rim-protector in Allen gives Mobley the freedom to move around the court in a switching defense, using his length to disrupt passing lanes and providing weak-side coverage, like Draymond Green has done for a decade with the Warriors. The real unlocking of Mobley’s game will be when he’s slotted in at center. Last season, he averaged 25 percent of his minutes at the five, where he was surrounded by spacing, which should only be better this year after adding the elite play of Mitchell. Playing next to high-end guard play will give him opportunities to unlock his secondary playmaker abilities.

For anyone who loves watching a ball go through the hoop in the most elegant way possible, hope keeps us watching, even when it’s false hope. It’s also why we contextualize would-be generational ball players as our raison d’être, even when it’s a mirage. Where others possessed one or two unique sensibilities, Mobley is an enigma. Where other prospects failed at fulfilling the auspice of hope, Mobley embodies it as flesh and bone. And as Red’s good friend Andy Dufresne put it… “hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” 

The match had a simple, yet effective, build. It made All Elite Wrestling’s fan base excited because of the easy-to-spot ramifications. AEW World Champion Jon Moxley put his belt on the line against former champion Hangman Page in a first-time matchup, a dream clash for fans — on television for free. The winner would be the top guy heading into the company’s next quarterly pay-per-view, Full Gear, and the other would be pushed aside. Except ending the epic encounter with a clean result didn’t happen. And it was absolutely the right decision.

Professional wrestling has predetermined results. The best wrestlers can communicate on the fly and pull off their enticing-looking arsenal without risking their own safety or the health of whoever they’re in the ring with. Page and Moxley are great examples of grapplers who can make their moves look devastatingly painful but have the respect of the locker room to get out of the squared circle unscathed most of the time, no matter if CM Punk doesn’t like Cowboy Shit. In the real-life crash test dummy world of pro wrestling, accidents happen, as evidenced by Moxley’s mid-match lariat that connected with Page’s head and sent him spiraling to the canvas without a clean landing. It’s unclear if Page was dazed before impact or if the odd bump caused the head or neck injury. Either way, it’s obvious Page wasn’t alright moments after hitting the mat.

AEW referee Paul Turner recognized Page’s distressed state immediately. After checking on Hangman, he called in Michael Sampson, the company’s ringside doctor, to check on him. At that point, longtime wrestling fans know the protocol: The show comes to a halt. Everything is secondary to caring for Page. A similar situation happened with former WWE star Enzo Amore, ending a tag team championship bout at Payback in 2016 because of a head injury. Turner called for the bell to end the match shortly after Sampson entered the ring. It led to a spine board being brought onto the mat to support Page getting onto a stretcher with minimal movement. AEW officials also loosened the bottom rope to make sure Page’s escort out of the arena was as smooth as possible.

Page was taken to a local hospital, diagnosed with a concussion, and subsequently released. Things could have been so much worse if not for the awareness of Turner, Sampson, and Moxley, who all made sure to tend to Hangman in their own ways before the show could move on. And it did with Moxley and MJF cutting a great impromptu promo setting up their main-event match for Full Gear. By the time Moxley had a microphone to start the dialogue, Page was nowhere in sight. Hangman tweeted Wednesday night that he was in good spirits. There has been no timetable set for Page’s return to the ring, but he was placed in AEW’s concussion protocols.

AEW has now given us a pristine example of how to handle signs of head injuries and concussions amid the NFL’s investigation into how badly it failed Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. If Page took that lariat, was checked on by Turner and Sampson, continued to wrestle the match, and then strapped up his boots again to fight in a few more days willing to be dropped on his head with a vicious piledriver, that would be the equivalent of how the NFL’s medical practices harmed Tua. Under the circumstances, the NFL has as much time to react to concussions as AEW had. One company’s safeguards clearly saved one of its employees from further damage. It also shows how AEW learned from putting Matt Hardy back in harm’s way two years ago after hitting his head onto concrete.

There’s a direct route for how AEW can help the NFL. Tony Khan, AEW’s CEO and president, is the son of Shad Khan, who owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not all concussion cases are the same, obviously, but several measures to prevent maximizing the damage of head injuries, are. The NFL could learn a thing or two from how AEW handled this situation, like letting Colts’ running back Nyheim Hines walk to the locker room under his own power after showing gross motor instability. What a disgusting showing that was. And you can bet based on how delicately it handled Hangman’s injury, letting an athlete trot off the field wouldn’t have happened on an AEW show.