SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- As Kyle Juszczyk walked to the bus to leave State Farm Stadium after the San Francisco 49ers' 2024 season ended, he was uncertain about what was next.

Juszczyk's suspicion that he might have played his final game as a Niner was correct. The 49ers informed Juszczyk on Monday night that he is being released, a source told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Juszczyk, 33, told ESPN after that season-ending loss to the Arizona Cardinals that he plans to play in 2025 no matter the team, a sentiment also shared by Schefter's source.

"I know I'm not done," Juszczyk said Jan. 5. "I'm definitely not done playing. I've seen zero regression. I think especially, I mean, you can turn on the last two games and please show me where I've regressed, so I have no plans of stopping."

Juszczyk and the 49ers nearly parted ways last offseason before Juszczyk agreed to a pay cut to stay with the team. It seemed a similar agreement would be needed this offseason for Juszczyk to play a ninth season in San Francisco, though that did not materialize.

Juszczyk was due to count $6,496,750 on the 2025 salary cap and has void years on the deal through 2028 that would cost an additional $1,674,00 against the cap in 2026 after his contract was set to expire. Juszczyk's release means the Niners will save $2,926,000 against this year's cap with an immediate dead money charge of $3,570,750.

Juszczyk was one of the first free agents 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch signed after taking over in 2017.

Juszczyk was named to the Pro Bowl after each of his eight seasons in San Francisco and was first-team All-Pro in 2023 and second-team All-Pro in 2024. He ran for 212 yards and 5 touchdowns on 60 carries and added 184 catches for 1,895 receiving yards and 13 scores in his time with the team.

At the NFL scouting combine in February, Lynch hinted that Juszczyk might be moving on and that seemed more realistic when the team agreed to a three-year deal worth up to $20.3 million with tight end Luke Farrell on Monday. Farrell could handle some of Juszczyk's former blocking duties.

"We're trying to make everything work and [with] some tighter constraints than we've had in the past," Lynch said then.

Juszczyk will also come up just short of landing a spot on the Niners' 10-year club, which honors players who have played at least 10 consecutive seasons in San Francisco. The team hasn't added any new members since Joe Staley in 2017.

Perhaps more bothersome for Juszczyk is that he came close to winning the Super Bowl on multiple occasions with the 49ers -- including two losses in the big game.

"I want to win a ring," Juszczyk said in January. "I want to win a ring here. But again, if I'm forced to do it somewhere else, I've still got so much football left in me. I still love the game so much. I'm still playing at a high level and I know there's teams out there that can use me."

CHICAGO -- Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton missed his third game in a row Monday night because of a left hip flexor strain.

The two-time All-Star sat out Indiana's 121-103 loss at Chicago after also missing back-to-back games against Atlanta on Thursday and Saturday. He had missed only one of Indiana's first 60 games before that.

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said before the latest game that Haliburton was getting closer, but wasn't ready to play yet. Carlisle had said last week that the fifth-year pro was day-to-day.

Haliburton hasn't played since scoring 28 points and having 15 assists in a 115-102 win over Houston last Tuesday night. He averaging 18.5 points and 8.9 assists in his 59 games this season, with 23.9 points and 12 assists a game in his seven games played since the All-Star break.

Free agent center Mo Bamba has agreed to a 10-day contract with the New Orleans Pelicans, Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports and Greer Love told ESPN.

Bamba, 26, signed a one-year deal with the LA Clippers before the season and appeared in 28 games (two starts) before he was traded to the Utah Jazz along with P.J. Tucker.

Bamba shot a career-high 62% on two-pointers this season. He averaged 1.3 blocks and 36% shooting on 3s in his career.

After the Jazz waived Bamba, he played three games for the Pelicans' G League affiliate, averaging 20 points and 13.3 rebounds per game.

The former No. 6 pick in the 2018 draft, Bamba has spent time with the Magic, Lakers, 76ers and Clippers across his seven seasons in the NBA.

Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis announced on X on Monday that he has been sitting out with what has so far been an unidentified illness.

"I have been dealing with some viral illness that we haven't been able to fully identify yet," Porzingis posted on the social media site during Monday's game between the Celtics and Jazz in Boston. "I am recovering and getting better. But still working my way back to full [strength] to help this team. Thanks for support and [I'm] hoping for a healthy return soon."

Porzingis hasn't played since Feb. 26 in Detroit with what the team has described only as a non-COVID illness, with Monday's game marking the sixth consecutive game that he has sat out.

The 7-foot-2 center is averaging 18.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks for Boston across 32 games this season. He sat out the opening month of the season after undergoing offseason surgery to repair a rare tendon injury in his ankle that he sustained during last season's NBA Finals.

Boston entered Monday's game having won 14 of its past 17, and sits in second place in the Eastern Conference standings. Boston will host the Western Conference leading Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night.

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry has accepted a role with his alma mater Davidson College as an assistant general manager for the basketball programs, university officials told ESPN.

Curry becomes the first active player in U.S. major professional sports to take an administrative job with an NCAA team.

In his new role, Curry, who played three seasons at Davidson (2006-09), will provide guidance to the men's and women's teams based on his college and professional experience.

He'll work with general manager Austin Buntz, a former Under Armour global sports marketing team member. Curry first signed with Under Armour in 2013 and launched his own Curry Brand as a standalone venture with the company in 2020. He also signed a lifetime contract shoe deal in recent years.

Curry, his wife Ayesha Curry and longtime Davidson College supporters Don, Matt and Erica Berman will also start an eight-figure fund for both the men and women's programs. Matt Berman, who played soccer for three seasons at Davidson as a member of the 2005 class, will serve as another assistant GM.

"The Davidson experience is top notch," Curry said in a statement released by the school. "My journey from when I got to Davidson in 2006 to now demonstrated that I had the opportunity to play basketball at the highest level, got a great education, an amazing network through the Davidson alumni and continue to wave the Davidson flag. I want very talented, high character student athletes to have that same experience."

As a sophomore at Davidson, Curry set the NCAA single-season record for 3-pointers, was named conference player of the year twice and, after his junior year, became the No. 7 overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft by the Warriors.

The future Hall of Famer went on to win two Most Valuable Player awards and four championships with the Warriors and is in his 16th season with the team.

Curry returned to Davidson in 2022 to complete his undergraduate degree as a member of the class of 2010. He was also inducted into the school's Hall of Fame.

In a similar move, retired NFL quarterback Andrew Luck accepted a general manager position at his alma mater Stanford last year.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- All-Star forward Jalen Williams was ruled out for the second half of Monday's 140-127 loss to the Denver Nuggets after suffering a right hip strain, the Oklahoma City Thunder announced.

Williams sustained the injury when Nuggets forward Peyton Watson landed on him after Watson committed a foul with 6:07 remaining in the second quarter.

Williams remained in the game for another 57 seconds before checking out and heading to the locker room. He was ruled out at halftime and finished with 12 points in 14 minutes.

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault had no update on Williams's status after the loss, only saying that Williams will be evaluated on Tuesday.

Williams, a first-time All-Star, entered the game averaging 21.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.7 steals for the Western Conference-leading Thunder.

Former big league slugger Mo Vaughn has confirmed he used human growth hormone to recover from a nagging knee injury late in his career.

The 1995 American League MVP told The Athletic in a recent interview that he had HGH injected into his knee to extend his career.

"I was trying to do everything I could," Vaughn told The Athletic. "I knew I had a bad, degenerative knee. I was shooting HGH in my knee. Whatever I could do to help the process."

Vaughn was one of baseball's most feared hitters during his prime while with the Boston Red Sox in the 1990s, hitting 39 homers with 126 RBIs during his MVP season. He began having injury issues later in his career, including his left knee and a ruptured biceps tendon that cost him the entire 2001 season.

Vaughn was among the players named in 2007 in the Mitchell report, which looked into the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. The report offered evidence that Vaughn made three separate purchases of HGH in 2001. Major League Baseball didn't ban HGH until 2005, nearly two years after Vaughn's last game.

Vaughn played eight seasons with the Red Sox before two-year stints with the Anaheim Angels and New York Mets.

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out seven over five impressive innings and Shohei Ohtani ripped a 118.5 mph double during the Los Angeles Dodgers' penultimate game of the spring schedule on Monday.

Yamamoto threw 75 pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Camelback Ranch. His fastball touched 97 mph and four of the seven strikeouts came on his splitter. The Japanese right-hander gave up one run on four hits in his final spring training start, walking one as the Dodgers went on to win 6-2.

Yamamoto is scheduled to start the Dodgers' regular-season opener against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo on March 18. Ohtani is expected to be the designated hitter.

Ohtani's third extra-base hit of the spring came in the first inning and the reigning National League MVP jogged into second base for the easy double. He grounded out in the second and struck out in the fourth.

Ohtani is 6 of 17 this spring (.353) with two doubles and a homer. The 30-year-old is trying to bounce back from offseason shoulder surgery.

Rookie right-hander Roki Sasaki is scheduled to start the final spring training game for the Dodgers on Tuesday. He's expected to start the second Dodgers-Cubs game in Japan on March 19.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Dave Roberts and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in agreement on a four-year extension that will set a record for average annual value on a manager's contract, a source told ESPN on Monday.

The new deal, which runs from 2026 to 2029, will pay Roberts $32.4 million, carrying an $8.1 million average annual value that will narrowly edge out the yearly rate on Craig Counsell's five-year, $40 million contract with the Chicago Cubs. Roberts, 52, will manage the 2025 season under his current contract, which was entering its final year.

A new deal was considered a foregone conclusion after the Dodgers secured their second championship in five years last fall. Serious negotiations began sometime around February; significant progress was made last week; and an announcement could come before the Dodgers fly to Japan to begin their season March 18. The 2025 season will mark Roberts' 10th with the Dodgers.

"I can't talk so much about it, but I do think that there's finally some closure," Roberts said after Monday's Cactus League game. "I'm excited. Obviously this is the place I want to be. I'm sure I'll go into it more. Hopefully there's an announcement coming soon; I'm waiting. But this is the place I've always wanted to be. I just love what we're doing."

A cult hero in Boston for the stolen base that helped trigger an unprecedented comeback in the 2004 American League Championship Series, Roberts carved out a 10-year career as a major league outfielder, then spent five years on the San Diego Padres' coaching staff. The Dodgers hired Roberts to replace Don Mattingly in November 2015, making him the franchise's first minority manager.

Since then, Roberts has guided the Dodgers to four National League pennants, eight division titles and a .627 regular-season winning percentage, the highest for someone who has managed at least 250 games. From 2016 to 2024, the Dodgers won 907 regular-season and postseason games. Only the Houston Astros (862) and the New York Yankees (807) even surpassed 800.

The Dodgers won at least 100 regular-season games in five of six full seasons from 2017 to 2023 and finished the 60-game 2020 campaign with a .717 winning percentage. The only year the Dodgers have not won the NL West under Roberts, in 2021, they finished with 106 victories -- fewer by one than a San Francisco Giants team they later eliminated in the playoffs. And yet Roberts has only one Manager of the Year Award to his name, a sign of the harsh realities of his job.

For years, the Dodgers' triumphs have been widely credited to an ownership group with deep pockets and a baseball operations department that is among the most astute in the industry. Roberts, meanwhile, had been left to shoulder the blame for repeated postseason disappointments. That was never more true than in 2019, when another 106-win Dodgers team lost in the NL Division Series to the Washington Nationals after Roberts rode Clayton Kershaw a little too long in a decisive Game 5.

But Roberts went on to manage the Dodgers through an unorthodox 2020 postseason that was staged in a bubble and did not include any days off within series, claiming the franchise's first title in 32 years and buying himself more time. More October disappointment followed thereafter. The Dodgers were outlasted by the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS in 2021, then were defeated by inferior division rivals in the NLDS in 2022 and 2023, first the Padres and then the Arizona Diamondbacks.

A similar fate seemed to await the Dodgers in 2024. They found themselves a game away from elimination by the Padres in the NLDS, having to win in San Diego to keep their season afloat. A third consecutive early exit, immediately following a first-round bye, would have probably cost Roberts his job. But he managed through a bullpen game in Game 4, then rode more dominant pitching in Game 5 to advance. The Dodgers then breezed past the New York Mets and Yankees to secure their first full-season championship since 1988.

The 2024 season ultimately highlighted Roberts' best traits. His even-keel demeanor helped the team navigate the betting scandal surrounding Shohei Ohtani's then-interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, early in the year. His trademark positivity kept the team's spirits high when injuries plagued star players such as Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow throughout the summer. And in the fall, while dealing with an extremely compromised starting rotation, Roberts seemed to press all the right buttons.

He navigated through bullpen games on four occasions, most notably to save the season against the Padres and to win the pennant against the Mets. And in Game 5 of the World Series, when starting pitcher Jack Flaherty didn't pitch past the second inning, Roberts rode a beleaguered group of relief pitchers while the Dodgers made a spirited comeback and entrusted another starter, Walker Buehler, to record the final three outs.

With the win, Roberts put himself alongside Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda as the only Dodgers managers to win multiple rings. It more than likely secured his place in the Hall of Fame. But what he was most proud of was that the trust he had always extended to his players had been reciprocated.

"That's everything," Roberts told ESPN shortly after securing the championship. "I believe in them. And this is the first team that I felt really like the trust went both ways. And that regardless of whatever decision I made, they were going to support me 100 percent."

The New York Post was first to report Roberts' extension.

New York Yankees right-hander Gerrit Cole will undergo Tommy John surgery, the team announced Monday, ending his 2025 season before it began and leaving the club staggering from another blow as it prepares to defend its American League pennant.

The decision to have the surgery, which will sideline Cole for the 2025 season and at least part of the 2026 season, was made after seeking a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache on Monday. Cole will undergo the procedure Tuesday at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. In a statement, the club said that "further updates will occur post surgery."

Cole started two games this spring, giving up seven runs across six innings. On Thursday, he gave up six runs on five hits, including two home runs, over 2 innings to the Minnesota Twins. He said he felt an "alarming" amount of pain that night into Friday morning, prompting him to notify the team and undergo imaging tests, which revealed a torn ulnar collateral ligament.

Cole, 34, went through the same series of stressful events a year ago: Elbow pain in mid-March, tests and opinions from doctors. But the result was different. Cole was diagnosed with nerve irritation and edema and, instead of surgery, he rested and rehabbed. He made his season debut on June 19 and pitched through the World Series without a setback.

In a statement he posted on Instagram later Monday, Cole said the surgery was a "necessary next step for my career," adding that he has "a lot left to give, and I'm fully committed to the work ahead. I'll attack my rehab every day and support the 2025 Yankees each step of the way. I love this game, I love competing, and I can't wait to be back on the mound -- stronger than ever."

The ace logged 124 innings over 22 starts between the regular season and playoffs, tossing at least six innings in three of his five postseason outings. He then opted to alter his offseason throwing program by starting it earlier to continue his positive momentum. He said he was "in a really good spot" compared to other years at the start of camp.

But less than a month later, his season has been declared over.

Cole's injury is the second major blow to the Yankees' starting rotation this spring after Luis Gil, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, sustained a lat strain that was expected to sideline him for at least three months.

Without the two right-handers, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt will top the Yankees' starting rotation. Marcus Stroman, who was notably not expected to make the Opening Day rotation, is projected to slide into the No. 4 spot with Will Warren, a rookie who made his debut last season, and Carlos Carrasco, a soon-to-be-38-year-old veteran in camp as a non-roster invite, as the leading internal candidates to round out the quintet.

Other options in camp include right-hander Allan Winans, who has eight career starts on his résumé, and left-hander Brent Headrick, a starter in the minors who has never started a game in the majors.

The Yankees could also opt to sign a free agent -- veterans Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn are among those available -- or swing a trade for an established starter.

Cole, a six-time All-Star, won the 2023 AL Cy Young Award and was the runner-up two other seasons. He has tallied at least 200 innings in six of his 10 full seasons (not including last year and the COVID-shortened 2020 season). He is as close to an old-school frontline workhorse in his prime that exists in baseball. It's why the Yankees chose to sign Cole, a lifelong Yankees fan, to a nine-year, $324 million deal with a no-trade clause in December 2019 -- the largest contract given to a pitcher at the time.

The agreement included a player opt-out after last season that the Yankees could've voided by attaching another year and $36 million to the four years and $144 million remaining on his contract. Cole exercised the opt out, but he never became a free agent and didn't receive the extra year. Instead, the two sides agreed to continue as if Cole didn't opt out two days later, keeping him under contract through the 2028 season at $36 million per year.

The Yankees have insurance on Cole's contract, which will allow them to recoup some money for the time he's out.