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Sports
LeBron James Tells
Tiger Woods Withdraws From PGA Championship, Done For The Season
Cavs He Will Re-Sign
LeBron James has in- formed the Cleveland Cava- liers he will re-sign with the reigning NBA champions this summer but still has no timetable for negotiating or signing a deal.
James is one of several members of the Cavs from last season's championship team who remain unsigned, including J.R. Smith and head coach Tyronn Lue.
James is currently tra- veling and spending time with family. He will meet with agent Rich Paul and go over his contract options at some point but there is no rush, sources said.
Under league rules, James has several contract choices. He can sign for up to $27.6 million next season on a one-year deal -- as he has done the past two summers - - or sign a multiyear deal that could make him the league's highest-paid player at $30.9 million for next season.
James has vacationed in Spain and Hawaii in addition to spending time at his new
TIGER WOODS Woods indicated in June
that he wasn't sure whether he would play at all in 2016.
With Them
Tiger Woods is pulling the plug on his hopes of play- ing this season.
The PGA Championship said on Tuesday that he had withdrawn from the major, and his agent Mark Stein- berg said that he will not play in a event for the rest of the 2015-16 season.
Harold Varner, III will take Woods' spot at the PGA Championship.
After A Bad Break, Paul George Ready For Olympic Redemption
PAUL GEORGE
It has been two years since Paul George's life was inextricably altered during a USA Basketball exhibition game in which he snapped his left leg in gruesome fashion under the basket at the Thomas & Mack Center, an incident he now refers to sim- ply as "the injury."
He's back in Las Vegas this week. Back donning a USA jersey across his chest. Back among the game's elite. Back fulfilling his reputation as a dominant talent on the court.
George already restored his place in the basketball pecking order before this week, making third-team All- NBA and second-team All- Defensive in 2015-16 while putting up better overall numbers than he did for the Indiana Pacers in the season before "the injury." Resuming his spot within Team USA just brings things full circle.
"It means a lot," George said after Team USA's open- ing practice of training camp in preparation for the Rio Olympics next month.
He has been rehabbing from back surgery since last year and has undergone three back surgeries since March 2014.
Steinberg said that Woods is continuing to make progress in his rehab, but it didn't make sense to play this season considering how few events are left. They will assess when to return for next season.
LEBRON JAMES
home in Los Angeles over the past month. His timetable for signing is not related to Smith, who is also repre- sented by Paul.
As with last year, when Paul represented both James and then-free agent Tristan Thompson, the free agencies are being con- ducted separately, sources said.
Smith and the Cavs have been in negotiations but re- main apart on terms. Last week, Cavs general manager David Griffin told reporters he was "very confident" the team would work out a deal to re-sign Smith.
Kyrie Irving: 'Having A Chance
For Gold In The Olympics
Is A Dream Come True'
Bill Simmons' Staggering Salute To Serena Williams On HBO
SERENA WILLIAMS AND BILL SIMMONS
After winning the NBA championship, something Kyrie Irving termed "the hardest thing" he's ever done, the Cleveland Cavaliers daz- zling young point guard has his sights set on another piece of shiny hardware.
"Having a chance to go for a gold in the Olympics is a dream come true," Irving said following Tuesday's prac- tice with Team USA. He made the comments during an ap- pearanceon NBA TV.
Irving picked up a gold medal at the 2014 FIBA World Championships. He was also named MVP and USA Basket- ball Male Athlete of the Year.
"It's prepared me a great deal," Irving said. "Under- standing the process of being
KYRIE IRVING
together for a certain amount of days and there's nothing more beautiful than seeing a bunch of great stars come to- gether and we flourish in a tournament against other countries. There's nothing more beautiful than that for me.”
Serena Williams' status in the sports world and the larger global culture contin- ues to expand, as only it can.
In a new piece that de- buted on his HBO show, Any Given Wednesday, sports au- thority Bill Simmons com- pares her to some of the greatest all-time boxers, in- cluding Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, and to other athletic luminaries such as Larry Bird, Roger Fed- erer and John McEnroe.
He notes her dominance within her sport itself, includ- ing a 16-11 head-to-head record against sister.
The four-minute clip ends with Simmons' expecta- tions of Serena late this summer:
"This summer, we need Serena's voice more than
ever," Simmons says, in re- ference to her recent state- ments about race relations and gun violence toward African Americans. "She has the Rio Olympics and then the U.S. Open, two gigantic forums. The good news is that we already know what she's going to do."
"At 34, she's become the Tiger Woods that we never totally got to see: A Black prodigy who ruled a country- club sport without ever flam- ing out," Simmons says. "Oh yeah, and she's also way more interesting than Tiger ever was."
In comparing her to Bird, and invoking the words of NBA titan Bill Walton to do so, Simmons also notes how Serena plays with "passion, persistence and purpose."
Why did the Thunder re- scind Dion Waiters’ qualify offer?
To prevent him from uni- laterally accepting it and re- ducing the cap space they need to renegotiate and ex- tend Russell Westbrook’s contract. And that’s only one component of Oklahoma City’s plan.
Not only do the Thunder want to re-do Westbrook’s deal, they hope to parlay that into signing Blake Griffin.
Convincing Westbrook to extend his contract won’t be easy. Neither will signing Griffin.
The 2017-18 salary-cap projection dropping gives Oklahoma City a chance, though.
Westbrook is slated to earn $17,769,374 next season. As long as the Thunder have $8,770,726 in cap space — which they could get by re- nouncing Waiters, signing him to a lower salary than his cap hold or trading — they can renegotiate Westbrook’s
RUSSELL WESTBROOK AND BLAKE GRIFFIN
salary up to his max of $26,540,100.
Of course, Oklahoma City wouldn’t give Westbrook a raise without getting some- thing in return: Westbrook agreeing to extend his con- tract and forgo 2017 free agency.
The most Westbrook could earn in 2017-18 with a renegotiation and extension is $28,530,608. His max in 2017 free agency projects to be $28.8 million. That $269,393 difference is obviously a kick in the bucket compared to the $8,770,726 salary increase he’d get this year.
Thunder’s Reported Goal:
Extend Russell Westbrook’s
Contract, Sign Blake Griffin
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