Last season, Cal Raleigh hit 60 homers. This season, he has zero through nine games.

That’s now partially thanks to Los Angeles Angels outfielder Jo Adell, who robbed what would have been the Seattle Mariners catcher’s first long ball of the season in the first inning of Saturday’s game.

Facing Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz, Raleigh clubbed a ball 104.7 mph and 370 feet to right field. It was a bona fide barrel… and landed just low enough for the 6-foot-2 Adell to snag it.

It’s been a slow start to the season for Raleigh, who entered Saturday slashing .138/.242/.172. He had so far registered only four hits while striking out an AL-high 16 times in 33 plate appearances.

And that’s after going 0-for-14 at the plate for Team USA at the 2026 World Baseball Classic in March.

Is that cause for panic? Well, food for thought, this time last year Raleigh was hitting 125/.250/.250 in seven games. He did have a homer by then, but the point is that disappointing numbers in early April are very easy to erase. Raleigh went on to finish second in AL MVP voting and become only the seventh player (or fourth, if you remove players with steroid allegations) in MLB history to reach 60 homers.

UFC 327 just lost its co-main event, as flyweight champion Joshua Van has pulled out from his title fight with challenger Tatsuro Taira according to MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz.

The bout was set to be Van’s first title defense and also the first time two Asian-born men have fought for a UFC title. Van’s reason for pulling out remains unknown.

It remains to be seen if Taira remains on the UFC 327 card to face a different opponent or the whole fight gets postponed. The UFC has reportedly been considering its options over the past few days.

The main event is still Jiří Procházka against Carlos Ulberg for the light heavyweight title.

Van won the belt in surprising and surreal fashion. After a quick rise through the flyweight ranks, he faced Alexandre Pantoja as an interesting underdog then basically got handed the belt after the champion gruesomely dislocated his shoulder on an awkward fall.

A Pantoja rematch would have been a natural choice, but the 35-year-old remains out of commission. That opened the door for Taira, who is coming off a second-round TKO win over former champion Brandon Moreno at UFC 323, the same event as Pantoja-Van.

Cooper Flagg stands alone in NBA history after Friday.

The Dallas Mavericks rookie became the youngest player in NBA history to record a 50-point game at 19 years and 103 days old, posting 51 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals in a 138-127 loss to the Orlando Magic.

He scored some of those points with style.

Flagg is also the ninth rookie in NBA history to post a 50-point game, joining Wilt Chamberlain, Rick Barry, Earl Monroe, Brandon Jennings, Elgin Baylor, Elvin Hayes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Allen Iverson. None of those players were teenagers when they reached the half-century mark.

Flagg’s previous career high was 49 points, which was also the previous high in NBA history for a teenager. He has time to break the record again, as he doesn’t turn 20 until Dec. 21.

The Mavericks were definitely pushing for him to get there. With head coach Jason Kidd was ejected for arguing with the officials over a non-call involving Flagg, assistant coach Frank Vogel took over and pulled Flagg with 3:35 left in the game.

At that point, Flagg was at 45 points, but Dallas was down 17 points. The game was over, but Vogel opted to put Flagg back in the game 22 seconds later and let him go for history. It might be easy to disregard such an effort because of those circumstances, but let’s just consider more than a few teenagers have played in the NBA and they were all in more than a few uncompetitive games at some point.

None of them did what Flagg did.

Could Cooper Flagg’s 50-point game swing the Rookie of the Year race?

With a 24-53 record, the Mavericks’ season has been effectively over for a while, but Flagg is still a Rookie of the Year candidate. As of Friday evening, BetMGM has him at +165 odds to win the award, the second-best odds behind former college teammate Kon Knueppel.

The two former Duke stars present an interesting contrast. Knueppel has been the most dependable rookie in the league all season, supplying a historic level of 3-point shooting to a Charlotte Hornets team on the verge of its first playoff berth since 2015-16. That’s a compelling case.

Flagg, meanwhile, has been more statistically productive across the board for a Mavericks team that has languished all season. He has dealt with injuries and played 11 fewer games, but he’s also exploded in ways Knueppel hasn’t. And there are still very few people who would take Knueppel long-term over Flagg, despite how their rookie years have worked out.

It’s a conversation that might not be as over as some think. And a 50-point game is a heck of a way to restart the discussion.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ highly anticipated showdown with the Oklahoma City Thunder was not going well. Then it got worse.

Lakers star Dončić exited Thursday’s game in the third quarter with an apparent leg injury. The Lakers later later announced he had sustained a left hamstring injury and would not return to the game.

This article will be updated with more information.

J. Cole’s basketball career is about to take him to China. Unless it’s an April Fool’s joke.

The multi-platinum rapper has signed a contract to play for the Nanjing Monkey Kings in the Chinese Basketball Association, honoring a commitment he made last year according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

He posted a greeting to Chinese fans on the video platform Douyin.

The 41-year-old Cole has previously suited up for the Patriots Basketball Club in Rwanda, competing in the Basketball Africa League in 2021. He posted 5 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists total in 3 games, averaging 15.2 minutes.

In 2022, he suited up for the Scarborough Shooting Stars of the Canadian Elite Basketball League, where he averaged 2.4 points and 9.9 minutes across 5 games. He has also participated in the NBA Celebrity Game in the past and was the cover athlete for the Dreamer Edition of “NBA 2K23.”

The CBL, with a few former NBA players in its ranks, figures to be a different animal than those leagues. Not that J. Cole is going to specifically be asked to deal with those players.

Before those professional stints, Cole’s basketball career consisted of two years of varsity basketball in high school, a failed attempt to walk onto the basketball team at St. John’s and scout team work for the Red Storm’s women’s team.

He was one of 10 players to get a callback while trying out for St. John’s, and he told Sports Illustrated a few years later that not making the team allowed him to focus on music:

“That was the moment where I decided that basketball was a pipe dream. It wasn't what I wanted to spend my next three or four years chasing. And that music was absolutely what I wanted to do. It was a hard decision, and that's assuming I make the team. Knowing my personality, not only would I have made it, but I would have done my best to be something of a player and get clock. I'd have been like a Jamario Moon, one of these guys that worked his whole life just to get to the league. I just got that type of spirit that does not quit.”

That pivot has obviously worked out. And now he’s playing basketball again.

Jayson Tatum is starting to look more and more like vintage Jayson Tatum.

The Boston Celtics star posted a major milestone Wednesday, recording his first triple-double since returning from a torn Achilles in early March. He finished with 25 points, 18 rebounds and 11 assists in a 147-129 win over the Miami Heat.

It’s the fifth triple-double of Tatum’s nine-year career.

Jaylen Brown led all scorers with 43 points on 17-of-29 shooting, plus seven assists. Together, he and Tatum scored or assisted on 107 points for Boston.

It hasn’t been all good since Tatum came back, but Boston has now won 10-of-12 games with him in the lineup. Since the Celtics’ last loss with him, a 102-92 stumble against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he’s averaging 25.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 7.8 assists per game.

The win improves the Celtics to 51-25, still good for the second-best mark in the Eastern Conference. However, with Tatum aboard, there’s no team in the East that Vegas trusts more. They’re +200 favorites to win the Eastern Conference and hold the third-best NBA title odds at +700, behind only the Oklahoma City Thunder (+145) and San Antonio Spurs (+450).

The Las Vegas Raiders have the first overall pick of the 2026 NFL Draft. You do not need to tell the team’s owner how that went last time.

While speaking with Paul Gutierrez of the Raiders team website, franchise majority owner Mark Davis signaled his eagerness for the top pick, then conceded that JaMarcus Russell, the team’s last pick in the slot, didn’t work out.

From the Raiders:

"Well, I'm really impressed with the way [Raiders general manager John Spytek] and [Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak] are working together, along with John's staff and the coaching staff," Davis said. "Having the first pick in the draft is exciting because we kind of control the draft — we get to make the decision on who we're gonna pick.

"But we've had that position before, and it didn't work out. So there's no magic bullet there, but it's a great opportunity to get a great player, whoever they decide to pick."

“Didn’t work out” is putting it mildly.

Russell arrived in Oakland with a big arm, big frame and big expectations after earning All-SEC first-team honors at LSU, but struggled from the beginning. His NFL career lasted only three mediocre seasons and he looms as one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history, especially when considering two Hall of Famers (Calvin Johnson and Joe Thomas) were selected with the two picks immediately after him.

So the Raiders have good reason to hope this time it goes better. They are widely expected to use the pick to draft Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy and a national championship last season, both firsts for the Hoosiers.

The selection will be part of a busy offseason for the Raiders. In addition to the infamous non-trade of star pass-rusher Maxx Crosby, the team has made a bevy of signings, including center Tyler Linderbaum, defensive end Kwity Paye, linebackers Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean and wide receiver Jalen Nailor.