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Jeff Stotts: Cade Cunningham Injury Update: A pneumothorax (collapsed lung) is much more common in contact sports like the NFL but there have been several cases in the NBA including Gerald Wallace, CJ McCollum (2x), & Terrence Jones. Average time lost? 26 days (~10.8 games)
A Georgia man is accused of a fraud and sex trafficking scheme that involved the identity of an adult star to target professional athletes. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia says Kwamaine Ford is charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, identify theft, sex trafficking and more. Investigators say Ford, of Buford, posed as a well known adult film star, offering to send explicit videos to NBA and NFL players. He is also accused of spoofing Apple customer service accounts to obtain usernames and passwords to supposedly access the videos.
The NBA has informed teams that it may launch a streaming hub for local broadcasts as soon as next season -- a year earlier than expected -- as a result of Main Street Sports Group’s impending demise in April, multiple sources told SBJ. While the exact format is still being ideated, those sources said the league is in talks with YouTube TV, DAZN, Amazon and ESPN and potentially others about housing local games for an aggregate of teams -- perhaps similar to an NFL Sunday Ticket -- depending on how many franchises opt in. Sources believe those streaming platforms would need the NBA to guarantee a certain threshold of teams before agreeing to any substantive deal, which industry insiders believe could be worth billions.
By continuing to deny the ABA its legacy, the NBA has fallen behind its major-league brethren in formally recognizing its own sport’s history. In April 2025, the NFL decided to officially incorporate records from the old All-America Football Conference into its record book. The former rival organization to the NFL, which was in existence from 1946 until 1949, spawned scores of Hall-of-Famers and introduced the San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns and an early version of the Baltimore Colts to pro football fans. All three franchises eventually entered the NFL.
This decision was a welcome step toward honoring the AAFC and the important legacy it bequeathed to pro football. At the same time, the NFL’s recent decision underscores the need for the NBA to take the same action regarding ABA statistics. Like the AAFC, a number of Hall of Famers got their start in the ABA, including Julius Erving, Dan Issel and Moses Malone. Just as the AAFC contributed to the development of pro football, the ABA greatly influenced pro basketball, helping popularize the dunk and 3-point shot, twin staples of the modern game.
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Perhaps the NBA’s clearest public rationale for excluding ABA statistics was given in 1982. A spokesperson explained that the NBA did not accept ABA records because: “In past instances where part of a league was absorbed into an existing league, such as the All-America [Football] Conference into the NFL, the same procedure was followed. The only situation in which this was different was the American Football League, where the entire league came in as a unit. This was not the case with the ABA, where only four teams came into the NBA.”
This statement was not even correct when it was made. Years before, MLB had absorbed a small number of teams from defunct baseball associations only later to recognize the records from those leagues in their entirety. Now, with the NFL’s recent decision to accept AAFC statistics, the wobbly plank purporting to hold up the NBA’s justification has collapsed entirely. The NBA’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge ABA records does not make sense. After all, the ABA boasted major-league talent. Indeed, the rival association won most of the 155 exhibition games played between the two entities.
When I spoke with Harden this afternoon and brought up the quarterback comparison, his eyes lit up. He did not just agree and he immediately identified the shared DNA between his role and the greats of the gridiron. When I asked him who in the NFL is also a system, he was quick to respond. “The greats,” James Harden told ScoopB.com. “You got Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes. Those are some of the greats with their playmaking. All those guys have decisions to make in every possession, other than a handoff, their passing. It’s a split second, so those are the guys that have to make a decision. I don’t even know how many times they pass the ball, but it’s difficult, it’s not easy. Some people that are really great decision makers, under pressure can think that fast, and some people just aren’t, so it’s a tough situation to be in. But the ones that are good at it, they excel.”
Metabilia, a company that partners with NFL and NBA teams to sell game-used and autographed memorabilia, uses tamper-proof stickers outfitted with a tiny epoxy disc containing diamond nanoparticles. "It's invisible to the normal eye, it's its own fingerprint," said Nicole Johnson, the co-founder of Metabilia. "It's indestructible." Another company, MatchWornShirt, partners with soccer clubs -- including Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea, AC Milan and Bayern Munich -- and a number of NBA teams to auction game-worn, signed jerseys to collectors, straight off players. The company uses a chip embedded in jerseys that uploads a digital certificate of authenticity and match-worn information to customers' cell phones.
Not everyone was thrilled with the NBA on NBC revival. According to Puck’s John Ourand, some NFL brass were “irritated” by the deal. “Executives at the NFL are irritated. That deal irritated them,” Ourand told Andrew Marchand during an appearance on Marchand’s podcast. “The idea that NBC is paying more for Sunday Night Basketball than for Sunday Night Football. These are people and personalities, and it makes the executives at the NFL crazy that that happens. So could they come in and just start to turn the screw because of that NBA deal?”
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He has had a photographic memory since he was a child. He’s always has his head in a book. He remembers random sports trivia in extraordinary detail from both the NBA and NFL. He’ll be out with his family and say randomly, “Remember the 2009 Packers playoff game when this or that happened?” Recently, he called a former college teammate and said: “Let’s list off guys from the 1996 NBA Draft.”
A major private equity firm bought the leading sports investment firm, the companies announced Thursday. KKR took control of Arctos Partners in a deal valued at $1.4 billion, giving the private equity giant a significant foothold in professional sports. Arctos holds an extensive portfolio of ownership stakes across every major North American sports league, from the NFL and NBA to MLB, and in the NHL and MLS. In the NBA, it holds minority stakes in the Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Utah Jazz and several others, including a stake in the Washington Wizards, which it acquired in December. It bought an 8 percent stake in the Los Angeles Chargers last year and also holds shares in the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. It also has a percentage of the soccer giant PSG.
The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, NASCAR, UFC and WWE have unveiled an agreement with Fanatics, the White House and America250 that will see an exclusive USA 250 patch and logo featured on athlete uniforms and performance gear, as well as in the venues where they compete during marquee moments throughout 2026.
As is usually the case in the current era of measurement, the numbers come with some caveats. To begin with, TNT delivered larger audiences for its primetime MLK Day games — including as much as 4.7 million for Cavaliers-Warriors in 2017. The NBA stopped scheduling primetime TNT games on MLK Day in 2022, when the NFL began playing playoff games on the holiday, but prior to that point they were a regular occurrence. In addition, NBC differs from the other networks in using a separate company (Adobe Analytics) to measure its streaming viewership.