Western Australia 6 for 210 (Shaun Marsh 82, Nair 2-18) beat New South Wales 7 for 235 (Hughes 112*, Henriques 75, Coulter-Nile 3-47) by eight runs (DLS method)

Nathan Coulter-Nile and Andrew Tye used all their experience to secure Western Australia a nail-biting eight-run win over New South Wales on the DLS method to put them top of the Marsh Cup table.

For much of the afternoon, it looked as though Daniel Hughes would take New South Wales to victory as they chased a DLS target of 244 following a two-hour rain delay during Western Australia's innings. However, when his 142-run stand with Moises Henriques was broken in the 24th over, the rest of New South Wales' middle order could not quite keep up the tempo, leaving Hughes' 112 off 96 balls in vain.

Following a sluggish start to the chase, which included Jack Edwards being caught at point, New South Wales were never comfortably ahead of the rate despite the crisp stroke play of Hughes and Henriques, which meant that when wickets started to fall, Western Australia were back in the game.

Coulter-Nile had Henriques caught in the deep and then returned to bowl his last two overs in the closing stages, removing Daniel Sams and Nick Bertus in the process as the equation swung further in Western Australia's favour.

It came down to New South Wales needing 14 off the last over and that proved too many against Tye, who conceded just five - despite bowling a wide - and claimed two wickets.

Western Australia had been solidly placed at 3 for 151 off 29.5 overs when the rain arrived and it lingered long enough to cause a significant reduction in the contest. On resumption, they did well to make 59 off the remaining 5.1 overs although New South Wales were hampered somewhat with Sean Abbott and Harry Conway having already bowled out.

Shaun Marsh had a half-century when the rain came and he added two more sixes to his tally after the break, one a huge pull, which went out of the ground, and the second a one-handed slice over backward point which he played from down on his back knee.

Henriques, who was entrusted with two of the death overs, struggled to land his attempted slower balls and was no-balled three times for big full tosses but the umpire did not rule them dangerous deliveries so he was able to continue bowling.

50 overs Pakistan 305 for 7 (Babar 115, Fakhar 54, Hasaranga 2-63) v Sri Lanka

Babar Azam produced another effortless hundred, Fakhar Zaman made a half-century, and the lower middle order gave the Pakistan innings the finish it deserved, to launch the hosts to an imposing 305 for 7.

Minus Lasith Malinga and Akila Dananjaya, Sri Lanka were toothless through the middle overs again, allowing a 111-run third-wicket stand between Babar and Haris Sohail to flourish, as Pakistan set themselves up beautifully for the last 10 overs. The visitors pulled themselves back into the game briefly by effecting a few dismissals through the early death overs, but Pakistan had enough batting on hand to hurt them in the end - Iftikhar Ahmed smashed 32* off 20 in his first ODI since 2015, as the hosts reaped 72 runs off the last seven overs.

Sri Lanka can at least take heart that although no ODIs have been played in Karachi for 10 years, it is not unheard of for teams to chase big at this venue - targets of over 300 having been successfully run down four times. Nevertheless, it will be a substantial challenge for their weakened top order.

On a flat surface, Babar didn't take long to get his big shots humming. He thumped his eleventh ball past mid-on to collect his first boundary, before launching Wanindu Hasaranga over the midwicket boundary next over. His striking would become more and more imperious as the innings wore on, and in between the singles and twos would be effortlessly collected.

At no stage did his innings ever look laboured. He got to fifty with a sumptuous cover drive, off the 55th delivery he faced, and then raised the tempo. His most productive over was the 34th of the innings, when he hit legspinner Hasaranga for two sixes over long-on. The hundred was brought up with a boundary as well - this one with a cut shot to the backward point boundary.

It was the 11th century of his career, his third against Sri Lanka, and the third of his last 11 innings, with four half-centuries and two scores of over 40 having been hit through that period as well. That he's a blinding limited-overs talent has been known for some years now, but in the last few months, Babar has suggested he is coming into a new, more-consistent period in his career.

He was eventually out for 115 off 105 balls - one of four batsmen to lose their wickets during the 40th and 49th overs, but as the stand between him and Haris had brought Pakistan coasting to 214 for 2 after 39 overs, Pakistan had resources to burn at the death. It seemed for a while that Pakistan would not quite breach 300, but Iftikhar struck two sixes off two of Nuwan Pradeep's slower balls in the final over of the innings, in which the hosts plundered 20 runs.

Earlier, Fakhar had struck some eye-catching boundaries of his own, as he strode to 54 off 65 balls, putting on 73 for the first wicket alongside Imam-ul-Haq, in the process. That stand had been broken by Hasaranga, who despite copping punishment from Babar, was Sri Lanka's best bowler of the innings, also eventually taking the wicket of Fakhar to finish with figures of 2 for 63. Isuru Udana and Lahiru Kumara also claimed a wicket apiece. Sri Lanka effected three run outs in the last 11 overs of the innings.

Former BCCI president N Srinivasan has challenged Committee of Administrators' chairman Vinod Rai's assertion that the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) stands to be disqualified from attending the BCCI elections, scheduled for October 23, if its constitution is not amended in line with that of the board.

Srinivasan, also a former ICC chairman but not an official in either the TNCA or the BCCI anymore, argued that the CoA was attempting to force state associations to comply with the BCCI constitution as a "pressure ploy", but that would only mean members losing their legal rights.

"I, for one, am not able to connect the eligibility to vote as a Full Member in the AGM and amendments to the members' constitution unless the BCCI elections are being held as a pressure ploy to get the members to give up their legal rights and adopt a servient attitude," Srinivasan was quoted as saying by Sportstar on Sunday. "I'm reminded of a quote by Robert A. Heinlein: 'There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him'."

Srinivasan, who was TNCA president for more than a decade, had to step down after the Supreme Court approved the RM Lodha Committee recommendations on structural reforms. However, last week, Rupa Gurunath, Srinivasan's daughter, became the first-ever woman to head an Indian state cricket association when she was unanimously elected as the new TNCA president.

"Abide by the directives of the CoA, or forfeit your right to vote in the AGM is not a stand which Mr Vinod Rai can take. He nor the CoA can substitute their wisdom for that of the Supreme Court" N Srinivasan

Rupa also happens to be the wife of Gurunath Meiyappan, a former official at Chennai Super Kings - owned by Srinivasan's India Cements - who was banned for life by the BCCI after it was established that he had breached the anti-corruption code.

On the same day the new TNCA administration took charge, the CoA told the TNCA that its constitution was not compliant with the BCCI's, with several eligibility criteria flouted. This was followed by an email by BCCI electoral officer N Gopalaswami sending out an email to all state associations stating that non-compliant members would not be allowed to attend the BCCI elections and the annual general meeting, and disqualified state representatives would not be able to participate in the board's polls. Rai reiterated the same.

According to Srinivasan, the final say on the matter can only be taken by the court, which had passed an order on September 20 allowing TNCA to conduct its polls, but said the results would be held in abeyance until its final order.

Srinivasan also said that P Narsimha, the amicus curiae who had been asked by the court to act as a mediator to facilitate the states to comply with its original order, had been "receptive" to the TNCA argument. "I'm told that the learned amicus curiae was receptive to many of the requests of the TNCA and has filed an interim report in court which is yet to be seen by the Supreme Court," Srinivasan said. "Therefore, abide by the directives of the CoA, or forfeit your right to vote in the AGM is not a stand which Mr Vinod Rai can take. He nor the CoA can substitute their wisdom for that of the Supreme Court."

Srinivasan said the court was yet to hear the TNCA case as well as the pleas of other states at length, so the CoA could not pass any diktat right away. "The CoA was told elections would go on and all matters would be decided later, including the outcome of the elections," Srinivasan said. "Earlier, the TNCA had made clear its stand on three basic issues: having at least two vice-presidents, one representing the 150 city club members and another from the 30 district associations, opposition to the applicability of eligibility criteria for committee members and the stipulation that for any amendment in future, the Supreme Court's approval was necessary."

Australia Women 1 for 87 beat Sri Lanka Women 8 for 84 by nine wickets

Australia women produced a dominant display in the field as Sri Lanka Women were overwhelmed in the second T20I at North Sydney Oval. The captain, Chamari Atapattu, could not match her heroics of the previous night as Sri Lanka managed just 8 for 85 which Australia knocked off with more than 10 overs to spare.

On a chilly evening under lights, Sri Lanka were never in the contest after electing to bat. Tayla Vlaeminck struck in a wicket-maiden opening over and Australia cut off Atapattu's favoured scoring areas more effectively than the previous night when she clubbed 113 off 66 balls. Any hope Sri Lanka had of posting a decent total disappeared when Atapattu was run out by a direct hit from Georgia Wareham in the 10th over.

Atapattu managed 12 fours and six sixes herself the day before, but this time the entire Sri Lanka innings featured just nine - with two coming off the final two deliveries - against an Australia outfit that were threatening throughout.

Delissa Kimmince (knee) and Ashleigh Gardner (hamstring) were rested and replaced by Nicola Carey and Erin Burns. Vlaeminck, handed the opening over in a change of tactics, was too quick for Yasoda Mendis, who swung widely and lost her off stump and Anushka Sanjeewani was cleaned up by Megan Schutt. The six-over powerplay brought 22 runs and included just three boundaries.

There was no let-up outside of the fielding restrictions as Australia's sharpness in the field stood out, typified by the direct hits by Wareham and Burns. Wareham's first two overs then cost just two runs, and included the wicket of Harshitha Madavi, after she was the seventh bowler used by Meg Lanning before Carey claimed her first T20I wicket by bowling Nilakshi de Silva.

Carey bowled her four overs for just nine runs and contributed one of three maidens in the innings - the most Australia have produced in a T20I. The stranglehold continued almost until the end, but Ama Kanchana managed three boundaries in the last two overs including dispatching the last two balls from Ellyse Perry.

Alyssa Healy, playing her 100th T20I, gave the chase a brisk start before falling to an outstanding catch as de Silva ran back from mid-on and held a steepling chance as she dived full length. Australia's fielding had been top draw, but that pipped everything.

Burns was given the chance to bat at No. 3, taking the chance with an unbeaten 30 off 18 balls, and Beth Mooney followed her century in the opening match with a neat 28 as victory came at a canter.

Pakistan allrounder Faheem Ashraf will return to Northamptonshire in 2020 after signing a deal for the first half of the season. He will be available to play in all formats ahead of Pakistan's tour of England later in the summer.

Faheem, 25, played for Northants during this year's Vitality Blast, taking 11 wickets in 11 matches with an economy of 8.11. The club hope he can play a role in their return to Division One of the County Championship next season, with head coach David Ripley describing Faheem as a "genuine threat" on flatter pitches.

"He's a little bit different bowling wise to what we currently have, he's got a little bit more pace, he's a swing bowler and he's got a batting average of 30 [in first-class cricket]," Ripley said. "I think the key element for Faheem is although we signed him for white-ball cricket this year it was pretty clear to see he could bat properly. He's played Test match cricket for Pakistan so he's a genuine three-formats cricketer."

Although he missed out on Pakistan's World Cup squad, Faheem has been a regular in the international set-up over the last couple of years. In all, he has played four Tests, 23 ODIs and 26 T20Is for his country.

"The fact he's got the extra pace is key, we've got a very fine group of seam bowlers that got us into Division One and that's not going to change," Ripley said. "But when it's a bit flatter and it's the last two days of the game and that little bit of nip has gone out of the wicket, someone with a bit of pace and swing and bowling yorkers, then I can see him being a genuine threat when the wickets are flatter.

"What the seam bowlers in Pakistan tend to have to do is find a way to get people out when those wickets are very flat and pretty slow. That's with swing, that's with yorkers and bouncers, that's with reverse swing."

One of the current core tenets of the NCAA's identity and business model will be illegal in the state of California starting in 2023.

Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law the Fair Pay to Play Act, which says colleges in California cannot punish their athletes for collecting endorsement money.

Colleges reap billions from student athletes but block them from earning a single dollar. That's a bankrupt model.

I just signed the Fair Play to Pay Act with @KingJames -- making CA the first state to allow student athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness. pic.twitter.com/aWE9OL9r1v

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 30, 2019

The signing was hosted Monday morning by NBA superstar LeBron James and his multimedia platform The Uninterrupted. James tweeted that the bill will "change the lives of countless athletes who deserve it!"

I'm so incredibly proud to share this moment with all of you. @gavinnewsom came to The Shop to do something that will change the lives for countless athletes who deserve it! @uninterrupted hosted the formal signing for SB 206 allowing college athletes to responsibly get paid. pic.twitter.com/NZQGg6PY9d

— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 30, 2019

Advocates of the new law say Newsom's approval marks the most significant step in a decades-long battle to create new compensation options for NCAA student-athletes. The law, which is scheduled to go into effect in January 2023, does not require schools to pay athletes directly as employees. Instead, it makes it illegal for schools to prevent an athlete from earning money by selling the rights to his or her name, image or likeness to outside bidders.

The law also allows for college athletes to hire a licensed agent to represent them. The bill was amended several times, including a recent provision that prevents athletes from signing endorsement deals that conflict with their team's sponsors. For example, a basketball player could not wear Nike products during team events if he or she plays for a school that is sponsored by Under Armour.

Current NCAA rules do not allow players to accept any compensation related to their status as a college athlete from outside sources. The organization's board of governors and its president, Mark Emmert, both sent letters to California lawmakers earlier this year asking them not to pass the bill. Emmert called the bill an "existential threat" to the college sports model in a recent interview with CBS Sports.

NCAA Board of Governor's Chair Michael Drake told ESPN that the NCAA wants to "evolve" and "modernize" its approach to name, image and likeness rights, but fears that California's bill has the potential to blur an important distinction between professional leagues and amateur college sports.

"We're not the association of the 20th century," Drake said. "We need to make sure we have 21st century rules. We want to continue to change appropriately for the future."

The NCAA assembled a group of university presidents, athletic directors and conference commissioners earlier this year to examine ways it might update its current policies. That group is expected to report its findings to the board of governors at some point in October. Drake, who spoke to ESPN before Newsom signed the bill, said the NCAA preferred that California give the association time to adjust its rules to avoid a situation where schools in different states are operating with different rules.

State Senator Nancy Skinner, who first introduced the Fair Pay to Play Act in February, said she is also hoping change will occur on a national scale. She said the NCAA has had decades to update its rules and needs legislative pressure to be spurred into action. The NCAA has formed committees in the past, one in 1998, to review its compensation rules.

Skinner believes others will follow California's lead and said the law's authors intentionally delayed its implementation for three years to give others a chance to catch up. She said lawmakers from several state have contacted her office in recent months to ask about her proposal. Politicians in Washington state, Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina have publicly supported the idea of creating similar laws in their states.

U.S. Congressman Mark Walker (R -- N.C.) has proposed a change to federal tax code that would force the NCAA to choose between giving athletes the rights to their name, image and likeness or risk losing their tax-exempt non-profit status. A representative from Walker's office said the California law has given added momentum to their proposal, which is currently in the House Committee on Ways and Means in the early stages of the legislative process.

Arizona State football coach Herm Edwards told ESPN in August that he's not certain how he feels about the concept of college athletes making money in general, but hopes that other states would act to make sure California didn't have a different set of rules. Edwards, who competes against four California universities in the Pac-12 Conference, said the ability for athletes to make money would create a major recruiting advantage for schools in the Golden State.

"I would think that they would have to give it to the [entire] Pac-12," Edwards said. "You would hope it's not just the state of California with that policy."

Some athletic directors in California are concerned that the new law will actually put their schools at a recruiting disadvantage. If rules don't change nationally before 2023, the NCAA says California teams would be banned from taking part in NCAA competitions. San Diego State athletic director John David Wicker said he's concerned that no out-of-state schools will be willing to schedule games with his teams.

Wicker said if forced to choose between abiding by the state's law and following NCAA rules, he would likely follow NCAA rules.

"We are the NCAA, and so if we have rules that dictate that you can't monetize your name, image, and likeness based on the sport, and those student athletes do that, then they're going to be barred from competition until whatever is adjudicated," Wicker told ESPN in August. "...[T]he state of California doesn't regulate the NCAA in that sense."

In other words, if California and the NCAA remain at odds in 2023, the Fair Pay To Play Act will likely lead to lawsuits that will require a judge to decide how it can be enforced. The NCAA contends the new law is unconstitutional because it violates rules that protect interstate commerce.

Skinner said, however, that multiple legal experts have assured her that the bill is constitutional. Furthermore, she said the NCAA's assertion that it will ban California schools from future competition would violate federal antitrust laws.

"The NCAA has repeatedly lost anti-trust cases in courts throughout the nation," Skinner said. "As a result, threats are their primary weapon."

A series of lawsuits, many of them filed in California courthouses, have chipped away at the NCAA's compensation rules during the last decade. Former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon filed a lawsuit in 2009 that eventually prompted the NCAA to allow schools to pay athletes "cost of attendance" stipends -- typically between $3,000 and $5,000 based on the school -- to offset the price of some education-related items not covered by a scholarship.

More recently, a judge ruled in March of this year that the NCAA couldn't place any cap on the benefits schools could provide to athletes as long as the benefits are related to education. The federal judge in that case said that includes paying for items like computers, science equipment [and] musical instruments.

The Fair Pay To Play Act breaks new ground by guaranteeing college athletes a chance to earn cash in an open market system. Skinner says the law creates a variety of opportunities for athletes that want to take advantage of it. Star players may be able to make money from apparel contracts, autograph signings and television commercial appearances. Less prominent athletes, she said, could benefit from things like being able to advertise their connection to their university team while teaching lessons to youth athletes or collect revenue from selling advertisements on social media accounts.

In the weeks preceding Newsom's decision, several high-profile public figures voiced their support for the law. James and Draymond Green both touted the change as "overdue" and a potential game changer for college athletes. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders responded to James on Twitter by saying, "College athletes are workers. Pay them."

Others like Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and Washington State coach Mike Leach have spoken out against the bill. Tebow, currently an ESPN analyst, said players making money would add to a selfish culture and take away from what is special about college sports. Leach suggested that California and its legislators had more pressing issues that should be occupying their time.

"California leads, that's what we do," Skinner said. "By restoring student athletes' rights, we've sent a clear message to the NCAA, our colleges, and the entire sports industry: Equity must be the overriding value."

Oakland Raiders linebacker Vontaze Burfict is facing a ban for the rest of the 2019 season for his helmet-to-helmet hit Sunday on Indianapolis Colts tight end Jack Doyle, sources told ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

Burfict was ejected in the second quarter of Sunday's 31-24 win for the Raiders. He was initially flagged for hitting Doyle in the head across the middle. But after the officials conferred, Burfict was thrown out.

Sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter that Burfict will be suspended as soon as Monday.

The 29-year-old Burfict received 13 suspensions and fines in seven seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals before signing with the Raiders as a free agent this offseason. Two of the suspensions were for illegal hits, totaling six games.

This is Burfict's first season with the Raiders, and he was named a team captain.

"It's a tough decision, it's a tough call. I think it was a flag," Raiders coach Jon Gruden said Sunday. "It was very well-documented that the league was going to review those plays this year in New York City. So, that's what happened and I'll wait to hear what their reasoning was. But it was a penalty, he went in there with his head down, it was called and, unfortunately for us, it was an ejection."

It's almost impossible to be good at everything in the modern NFL. We're not that far removed from an era in which the league's best teams were dominant on both sides of the ball. From 1991-99, at least one team in each season posted a top-five finish in both offensive and defensive DVOA. Fast forward 20 years and from 2011-19, only five of those seasons featured a team that was in the top five on both offense and defense.

One of those seasons was the still-nascent 2019 campaign, and the team was the Patriots, who will be dropping from their fourth-placed spot in offensive DVOA after the Bills held them to nine points on offense Sunday.

All across the league in Week 4, we saw teams that might be able to stake their claim as the best in football struggle to live up to expectations. Several of those squads pulled out narrow victories, but the tape isn't going anywhere. This could be another year without a single team blowing away the competition on both offense and defense.

Let's run through those teams and get a sense of what might be holding them back or loom as a serious flaw. With apologies to the Packers (who didn't play on Sunday) and the Seahawks (who have now played all four of their games against teams that were missing their best player for part or all of the contest), I'll start with the Patriots, who faced their toughest test of the season so far by a considerable margin:

Jump to a team:
BUF | CHI | DAL
KC | LAR | NE | NO

New England Patriots

The problem: Lack of infrastructure around Tom Brady

Rarely do you see Brady as flummoxed by a defense as he was against the Bills on Sunday. The 42-year-old finished the 16-10 win just 18-of-39 passing for 150 yards and an interception, with New England's nine offensive points coming on short fields after interceptions. (More on those in a minute.) Against a Sean McDermott defense that specializes in taking away big plays, Brady's average completion traveled just 2.9 yards in the air, the shortest mark for any quarterback in Week 4.

This was one of the least productive games of Brady's career. That's not hyperbole. Using adjusted yards per attempt, which is a better-weighted version of passer rating, Brady's 2.7 AY/A was the eighth-worst start of the future Hall of Famer's career in games with 20 pass attempts or more. Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised. The six worst contests were all starts from before the Brady Awakening in 2007. The seventh-worst start was Brady's game against the Bills in Week 16 last season, when he averaged just 2.3 AY/A in a 24-12 victory.

Of course, Brady and the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl last season, so there's not much to be worried about, right? Yes and no. It's fair to note that they won't have to play the Bills every week, and Buffalo might very well have the best defense in football. Brady has looked great this season and played fine on Sunday beyond an awful interception in the end zone on a pass he never should have thrown.

Last season, though, the Patriots had ways to help out Brady. Their running game took over during the AFC portion of the playoffs, with Sony Michel running behind an offensive line that coalesced as the season went along. In their postseason wins over the Chargers and Chiefs, the Pats ran the ball 82 times for 331 yards, 25 first downs and eight touchdowns. More than 46% of their runs qualified as successful by ESPN's expected points added model (EPA).

Anyone who owns Michel in fantasy football is well-aware that the former first-round pick has struggled mightily this season. He began the game with a 15-yard carry and finished with 17 carries for 63 yards, but neither he nor the rest of the Pats' backs have been up to the task. New England is 24th in the league in yards per carry (3.2), and just over 40% of its runs have qualified as successful by EPA. That figure falls to 36.7% if you exclude the game against the Dolphins, who don't appear to be playing the same sport as the Bills.

I wouldn't pin all of the blame on Michel and the backs. An offensive line that was dominant during the postseason is just trying to get by right now. Left tackle Isaiah Wynn, who went down during the Week 2 win over the Dolphins, is on injured reserve with turf toe. His replacement is journeyman Marshall Newhouse, who played Sunday after missing practice with an illness. The Pats were already down center David Andrews, who is done for the year with blood clots, and made a rare pro scouting misstep when they traded a sixth-round pick for Bills center Russell Bodine, only to cut him after a week. Fullback James Develin, a key blocker in the running game, is also on injured reserve.

When the Pats struggled to run the ball or do much of anything on offense during the Super Bowl, they had a second advantage to fall back on: Gronk. They pieced together their game-winning drive against the Rams by running the same play three times in a row for 49 yards, setting up a Michel plunge. Rob Gronkowski and Develin made that concept work as bigger players who were both excellent blockers and viable (or in Gronk's case, much more than viable) receivers. The Patriots could start with heavy personnel, force the opposing defense to match with their base defense, and then use their weapons to create mismatches in the passing game.

Gronkowski is gone, and the Patriots don't have the healthy pieces to create those mismatches. Remember two weeks ago, when I wrote about how the Patriots could go 16-0 and gushed about the upside of their receiving corps around Brady? A lot has changed in two weeks. Antonio Brown is no longer on the roster. Josh Gordon and Julian Edelman are both less than 100 percent as they play through injuries, and they've each dropped two passes over the past two weeks. Gordon is a mismatch when healthy, and Edelman was whipping the Steelers as recently as Week 1, but the Pats' best receivers right now are Phillip Dorsett and James White.

As a result, Brady spent most of Sunday throwing to White and Dorsett, who combined for 19 of his 34 catchable targets. (Five of his passes were marked as thrown away.) He was stuck attempting to repeatedly thread the needle downfield, and while he managed to create one big play on a wheel route to White and a second by attacking a gimpy Tre'Davious White for a pass interference call after James White went out with an injury, many of those passes into tight windows fell incomplete.

This should get better as the season goes along. The Patriots get Washington and the two New York teams over the next three weeks, which should help make them look a lot better than they did against the Bills. Offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia has a long history of improving his linemen as the season goes along, and the Pats should get better once Wynn returns from his toe injury in November. They might also get back first-round wideout N'Keal Harry as their other player from injured reserve at midseason, which would give Brady a physical mismatch in single coverage. Gordon and Edelman should also get healthier. Of the various concerns I'm laying out here, the Pats' problems are more fixable than most.

Buffalo Bills

The problem: Josh Allen is hopeless against smart defenses

Sunday's Bills-Patriots game was reminiscent of last December's game between those two teams on both sides of the ball. The Bills forced Brady into one of this worst games as a pro. On the other side, the Patriots took away what Allen does best and forced him into beating them from the pocket. Allen couldn't do it last December, and the second-year quarterback was even worse Sunday.

The worst quarterback performance of the day by Total QBR belonged to Allen, who went 13-of-28 for 153 yards with three interceptions, four sacks and a fumble before being knocked out of the game by a hit to the head from Jonathan Jones. Before the injury, Allen simply had no answer for how the Patriots defended him. Bill Belichick's defense is having a wildly impressive start to the season.

If you've watched Allen play more than a handful of snaps, you know how he threatens teams. He has improved his accuracy and thrown fewer deep passes in 2019, but the possibility of the deep throw and the threat Allen provides with his legs is where he can really hurt opposing defenses. Much of that comes from outside the pocket. Since the start of 2018, he has thrown about 20% of his passes from outside the pocket and leads the league in scramble yards.

Last season, the Patriots stayed disciplined in their rush lanes, trapped Allen in the pocket and trusted their defensive backs to hold up in coverage against a middling Bills receiving corps. They forced Allen to throw 41 times, and he completed just 20 of those passes for 217 yards, adding two picks. Outside of the pocket, Allen was just 1-of-3 for 5 yards. He scrambled only twice for a total of 11 yards. Belichick took away Allen's ability to place defenders in conflict with his legs and subsequently rendered Allen wholly ineffective.

Guess what happened Sunday? The Patriots forced Allen to live inside the pocket; he again was just 1-of-3 outside the pocket, and while his one completion went for 16 yards, one of the incompletions was a brutal interception. Allen scrambled just three times for 20 yards, fumbling on one of those runs.

With more confidence in his secondary, Belichick heaped added pressure on Allen by sending big blitzes -- or what appeared to be big blitzes -- on many third downs. While he wasn't sacked once in last season's matchup, the Patriots sacked him four times Sunday, with a fifth wiped away by a Stephon Gilmore holding penalty. One of those sacks came just before halftime and pushed Buffalo backward for what became a 49-yard field goal, which Stephen Hauschka then pushed wide. The sack that was wiped off by Gilmore's holding call was the most interesting of the bunch, as a Cover Zero rush where Allen simply had no idea where to go with the football (animation courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats):

It will infuriate Bills fans who insist otherwise, but Buffalo likely would have won this game with former quarterback Tyrod Taylor, if only because the biggest strength of the now-Chargers backup is his ability to avoid turnovers. The team would have had a viable shot of winning if Allen had just kneeled three times and run off to the sideline for a punt. The Bills were able to get Frank Gore and the running game going, with the ageless wonder running 17 times for 109 yards and setting up a Drew Brees-esque glance over the pile from Allen for a touchdown, but they had the fifth-worst passing game of the season by win probability added.

It's too early to give up on Allen improving, of course. He's going to look better against less-disciplined defenses, as he did against the Giants in Week 2. His next six weeks include a game against Washington and a pair of games against the Dolphins, and it wouldn't shock me if he looks like he's improving against dismal competition. On Sunday, though, he was quite obviously holding back the rest of his team.

Kansas City Chiefs

The problem: The front seven

Last week, I wrote about how the Chiefs still can't stop the run. When you're the Chiefs and your quarterback is Patrick Mahomes, though, you can generally afford to be bad against the run. Andy Reid's offense has scored on a staggering 63.7% of its first-half possessions since the start of 2018, which is comfortably the best mark in football. No other team tops 50% over that same time frame. The Chiefs get out to plenty of early leads, which force the opposing offense to abandon its running game and throw the ball to try to catch (or keep) up. The Chiefs are a NASCAR car with a perennially malfunctioning windshield wiper. Most of the time, their biggest weakness isn't going to really matter.

What's more concerning about the Chiefs, though, is that the offseason changes they made to try to improve their pass defense haven't really taken. After hiring Steve Spagnuolo to replace Bob Sutton, the Chiefs overhauled their secondary, adding three new starters in cornerback Bashaud Breeland, safety Tyrann Mathieu and rookie safety Juan Thornhill. The biggest shift, though, was up front, where they acquired Frank Clark and Alex Okafor to replace Dee Ford and Justin Houston on the edge. Both Clark and Okafor are solid against the run, but the Chiefs made those moves to try to improve their pass rush.

So far, the pass rush is much worse. Kansas City pressured opposing quarterbacks on 31.1% of dropbacks last season, the seventh-highest rate in football. This season, that same pressure rate has fallen all the way to 23.8%, which is just ahead of the Falcons at 25th in the NFL. Kansas City's sack rate hasn't fallen quite as precipitously, but quarterbacks have had an easier time against the Chiefs than they did a year ago.

On Sunday, we saw the Lions take advantage of both concerns and outplay the Chiefs, only to be denied victory by their own mistakes. Detroit controlled the clock, held the ball for nearly 34 minutes, and ran the ball 35 times for 186 yards. Matthew Stafford came into the game with a hip injury but didn't show many effects; the Chiefs pressured him only 22.5% of the time, and he went 21-of-34 for 291 yards and three touchdowns.

The Lions had 11 meaningful possessions, leaving out the two that came at the end of each half. Six of those 11 possessions made it inside the Chiefs' 10-yard line. Three of them ended in touchdowns. One resulted in a field goal. The other two produced fumbles. One was Stafford's worst play of the game and came after a Kenny Golladay touchdown catch was narrowly overturned; the former first overall pick scrambled out of a collapsing pocket, only to lose the ball on his way out, costing the Lions three points.

The other fumble cost them as many as 14 points, when Kerryon Johnson fumbled inside the 2-yard line and Breeland scooped up the ball and returned it for a 100-yard touchdown amid relative indifference from the Lions, who thought Johnson was down. The fumble was confirmed on replay and appeared to be the correct decision, but it reinforced just how the NFL has pushed officials into a corner.

I'm still concerned about the Kansas City defense holding up week after week throughout a postseason run. While Chiefs fans were basically excited to have anybody besides Sutton as defensive coordinator, Spagnuolo's defenses ranked 26th or worse in points allowed in four of his previous five seasons as head coach or defensive coordinator before joining the Chiefs. Chris Jones, who had a career season with 14.5 sacks and 29 knockdowns last year, has two sacks and five knockdowns through four games. Clark has one sack and one knockdown.

There's plenty of time to get going, and the secondary has shown more promise than it did a year ago, but the early returns on Kansas City's big offseason decisions aren't great.

Dallas Cowboys

The problem: Pass pressure

The Cowboys, likewise, haven't been great getting after quarterbacks this season. While they have yet to play a quarterback who wasn't either benched or a backup to start the season, they're pressuring opposing passers on just 19.7% of dropbacks after one month of football. That's the third-worst rate in football, ahead of only the Raiders and Dolphins.

The likes of Eli Manning and Josh Rosen weren't able to make the Cowboys pay frequently, but there's already a noticeable drop-off when the Cowboys don't get home. When Dallas does get pressure on the opposing passer, it allows a passer rating of 27.8, which is fifth best in football. Its Total QBR in those situations is a mere 1.2, the third-best mark in the NFL. Without pressure, the Cowboys fall to a 96.2 passer rating and 58.4 Total QBR, which is 12th and 10th in the league, respectively. I suspect that gap will rise as the Cowboys face a tougher slate of passers from here on out, including Aaron Rodgers and the Packers next Sunday.

Unlike many of these other teams, though, Sunday was Dallas' best game of the season rushing the quarterback. It pressured Teddy Bridgewater on 24.3% of his dropbacks and sacked him five times on 35 dropbacks, doubling its sack total from the first three weeks of the season. Robert Quinn, who was suspended for the first two games of the season, led the way with two sacks and three knockdowns.

In watching back those five sacks, though, the numbers sound more impressive than the actual performance. Two of those sacks were legitimately created by the pass rush, including the 16-yard megasack by Jaylon Smith on the final Saints drive that knocked New Orleans out of field goal range. The other three had little to do with the pass rush. One was a Quinn sack in which Saints center Erik McCoy snapped the ball prematurely and Terron Armstead didn't come out of his stance. The other two were coverage sacks in which Bridgewater held the ball and scrambled while waiting for someone to get open, including the Kyle Shanahan "leak" concept where Josh Hill came across the formation and eventually got open, but by the time that happened, Bridgewater was trying to scramble past the line of scrimmage and took a short sack.

Quinn comfortably led the league in ESPN's pass rush win rate last season -- he was at 33% and no other regular defender topped 28.7% -- but the NFL didn't value him as a great pass-rusher, with the Cowboys eventually sending the Dolphins a sixth-round pick to acquire the former Rams standout. If Quinn continues to produce at that rate, the Cowboys could build a scary pass rush around him and DeMarcus Lawrence. If it's mostly Lawrence-or-bust, though, the Cowboys will likely finish somewhere around 2018's pressure rate of 28%, which ranked 24th in the league.

New Orleans Saints

The problem: Quarterback

I'm officially concerned. When I wrote about Drew Brees' injury two weeks ago, I noted that I would be rooting for Teddy Bridgewater. I also pointed out that he hadn't been an effective quarterback since coming back from his knee injury, though that sample contained only 55 regular-season passes thrown over three seasons, during which he had been a part of three organizations.

The Saints have won both of their starts with Bridgewater under center, which is great news for their chances of competing for a Super Bowl. Bridgewater, though, has been a passenger in those victories. The former Louisville star is completing 73.7% of his passes as a starter, which is great, but he's averaging only 6.5 yards per pass, which ranks 27th in the league. His Total QBR is just 24.2, which is 29th out of 33 quarterbacks. Only Kirk Cousins, Luke Falk, Mason Rudolph and Andy Dalton are below the former Vikings first-rounder.

Since entering the lineup, the Saints have adapted their offense to fit Bridgewater by throwing virtually everything within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Just 19.5% of Bridgewater's passes have traveled 10 or more yards in the air, which is remarkable (and last) in a league in which the average quarterback throws more than 33% of his passes further. Bridgewater's average pass has traveled just 5.3 yards in the air, which is the shortest average pass in the NFL by nearly seven-tenths of a yard. Every other quarterback in the NFL with significant playing time has topped 6 yards per throw.

Throwing short passes is fine if you're moving the chains, but his passes haven't been difference-makers. Only 27.6% of his passes have resulted in first downs, which ranks 30th in the NFL. To contrast, while Brees ranked 29th in average air yards per pass last season, he still averaged 7.1 air yards per throw and converted 40.7% of his passes into first downs, the fifth-best ratio in the league.

When Bridgewater has attempted to stretch his arm downfield, the returns haven't been pretty. The NFL's definition of deep passes includes throws traveling 16 or more yards downfield in the air. On those passes in 2019, Bridgewater is just 1-of-7 for 16 yards with an interception, which came last night. The pick wasn't his fault -- he escaped pressure and made a nice throw before it was jarred out of Ted Ginn's hands for a pick -- but the Saints don't appear very interested in testing teams downfield with their new quarterback.

The Saints are 2-0 with Bridgewater at quarterback, which is all they care about right now, but that has been hugely influenced by their defense and special teams. Those units scored 14 points in the unexpected 33-27 win over the Seahawks in Seattle, and Marshon Lattimore & Co. followed things up on Sunday by forcing a Cowboys team that had converted 58% of its third downs through three games into a 4-of-11 performance on third downs.

Bridgewater has won the two toughest games of what is expected to be a six-game stint replacing the injured Brees. His final four games include home contests against the Bucs and Cardinals and road trips against the Bears and Jaguars. Splitting those four starts would get the Saints to their bye at 5-3 in advance of Brees returning for the second half, which includes five of the Saints' six divisional games in the NFC South. New Orleans is still in great shape to claim the South.

I'm concerned about Bridgewater's chances of holding his own if the Saints do need him down the line in a key game. There are also at least some reasons to worry about Brees, who will be coming back from an injury that could impact his usual pinpoint accuracy. Even if we get the Brees who was closer to good than great during the final few weeks of the 2018 season, though, the Saints are still a Super Bowl contender as constructed. That's going to be a tougher sell if they need to rely on Bridgewater, at least based on his current form.

Chicago Bears

The problem: Quarterback, too

Like the Saints, the Bears' defense is back for another vicious round in 2019. The turnovers have regressed ever so slightly -- they have eight takeaways in four games after racking up 11 over their first four games in 2018 -- but Chuck Pagano's unit held the Vikings to just six points across 10 possessions Sunday. To do that without Akiem Hicks and Roquan Smith is impressive, and as good as Chicago's top-level talent still is, it's heartening to see backups like Roy Robertson-Harris and Nick Williams impressing as their roles expand. This is still a very scary defense.

The problem on the other side of the ball, though, remains that the Bears don't seem to be good enough at quarterback. Mitchell Trubisky came into the season expecting to take another step forward and emerge as an upper-echelon starter. Instead, he was awful during the first two games of the season, and while his numbers were better on Monday Night Football against Washington, even he admitted his performance wasn't a breakthrough. His 116.5 passer rating was betrayed by a 45.1 Total QBR; Trubisky's average throw in the Washington game traveled just 5.4 yards in the air, with his beautiful touchdown pass to Taylor Gabriel on a third-and-17 as an exception.

On Sunday, Trubisky sought to prove his credentials in a tough divisional game against the Vikings, only to be forced from the contest with a serious injury to his non-throwing shoulder after just three pass attempts. Chase Daniel came in and went 22-of-30 for 195 yards and a touchdown pass to Tarik Cohen, though he could lead the Bears to only one drive of more than 10 yards in seven tries during the second half.

After the game, Matt Nagy suggested that Trubisky's injury wasn't season-ending, which leaves a huge swath of possibilities. Quarterbacks in the past have played through separations of their non-throwing shoulders, including Brett Favre and Michael Vick. Blaine Gabbert dislocated his non-throwing shoulder in August and was placed on injured reserve by the Buccaneers, although it's unclear if Trubisky has a similar sort of injury or if the Bears would approach the situation the same way given that Trubisky is their starter.

Nagy also said that the Bears would not need to make any changes to their offense by inserting Daniel, which gets to my bigger concern at the moment with Trubisky. In 2018, the Bears turned to Daniel for two starts against the Lions and Giants while their starter was out with a different shoulder injury. His passing numbers were modestly productive, but the biggest difference between watching the two quarterbacks in the same offense had to do with mobility and scrambling.

Daniel carried the ball eight times for 8 yards during his two weeks as a starter. In 2018, meanwhile, Trubisky generated a huge amount of value with his feet, running 68 times for 421 yards and three touchdowns. By ESPN's expected points model, about 25% of Trubisky's value in 2018 was a product of his work as a runner as opposed to his passing.

Even before going down with his shoulder injury, though, Trubisky had stopped running in 2019. Through a little over three games, the North Carolina product had just five carries for 21 yards. Those numbers put him on pace to finish with just 168 rushing yards. After scrambling 36 times for 320 yards and 16 first downs in 2018, Trubisky had just two scrambles for 10 yards and a lone first down through two weeks. That first down came on Trubisky's first third down of the season.

Is Trubisky deliberately trying to avoid scrambling? It's tough to say through three games. I would argue that it might be the best thing for his long-term development to stay in the pocket on third down and try to get more comfortable going through his progressions without scrambling for first downs, but it's obviously better for his team to take the conversion in the short term.

The Bears have faced longer third downs, which makes scrambling less practical in a situation in which Trubisky loved to get running a year ago. While the average Bears third down required only 5.8 yards to move the chains last season -- the fourth-shortest distance in the league -- Trubisky's average third down through three weeks was at 8.3 yards to go, which was instead the ninth-highest mark in the NFL.

The shoulder injury complicates all of this. If he were healthy, I would have argued for the Bears to try to get him involved as a runner more frequently in the weeks to come. Even if defenses were prepared to stop him, just the threat of him running on third down would help distract defenses and reduce the sorts of coverages Trubisky might see in third-down situations.

We know that shoulder injuries are more likely to recur after the initial injury, with the Anthony Miller injury from 2018 as a recent example Bears fans know well. Trubisky will want to avoid big, unexpected hits to try to keep his shoulder intact, and those are more likely to come as a runner. I'd also be worried about ball security as a runner if Trubisky has to place the ball into his other hand. It seems logical to try to keep Trubisky in the pocket and away from possible aggravations of the shoulder injury as much as possible upon his return, and that means taking his license to run away for the time being.

If Trubisky isn't going to run with the ball, Nagy probably doesn't have to change much of what he does on offense with Daniel taking over. The best version of this Bears offense, though, has Trubisky threatening defenders with his legs and picking up a couple of easy conversions on third downs per game. Take that away and you're asking Trubisky to win as a pocket passer. We haven't seen him do that consistently in the NFL.

Los Angeles Rams

The problem: Offensive identity

Let's finish up with the Rams, who lost their first game of the year in an upset to the Buccaneers on Sunday. It was the sort of game the Rams typically don't lose, given that they scored 34 points on offense and added a pick-six for good measure. Since the 1970 merger, teams that have scored 40 points in a game with at least one defensive touchdown were 400-5 before Sunday. They're now 400-6.

You can thank Chris Godwin & Co. for making it to 55 points on the other side of the field, and while that raises questions about the Rams' secondary, it's also fair to ask about what's going on with the Rams' offense. Up against a defense that was gashed by Daniel Jones in his first NFL start last week, Sean McVay's team turned over the ball four times. Jared Goff threw for 517 yards, but it took the former first overall pick 68 pass attempts to get there. He threw three interceptions, got away with at least one other near-pick, and finished with a Total QBR of just 38.8.

Just eight of those 68 attempts came off of play-action, in part because the Rams seemingly had little interest in running the football. Tampa came into the game with the league's second-best rush defense DVOA, and it subsequently held the Rams to 11 carries for just 28 yards. While Todd Gurley scored twice, he carried the ball just five times for 16 yards, instead racking up 11 targets and 54 yards as a receiver.

While I wrote about Goff's slow start to the season last week, it's difficult to extricate his performance from Gurley's. When the Rams were rolling in 2017 and 2018, Gurley was playing every snap and a threat to touch the ball 30 times per game in any single week. The Rams made a killing off play-action and never had to reveal any tendencies by taking Gurley out of the game, which even the Patriots have had to reveal by swapping out Michel and White at halfback.

In 2019, though, the Rams have needed to change their offense. As The Athletic's Ted Nguyen noted, the Rams have swapped out some of their outside zone runs for crack toss to try to beat the six-man fronts they saw at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 and get a ball carrier quickly to the edge. That works, but the Rams can't run the same play-action concepts off a toss play, which eliminates their ability to make everything look the same before a handoff until it's too late.

The Rams haven't been honest about Gurley's health for months. Whether they're dishonest to the public or to themselves is unclear. They swore that Gurley's knee was fine during the postseason, only to split his carries with street free agent C.J. Anderson. During the offseason, it became known that Gurley was dealing with an arthritic condition in his knee. This past week, McVay denied that Gurley was on a load management system and suggested that they wanted to get him into a rhythm by using him more in certain weeks.

It's hard to believe the organization here. McVay played Gurley on nearly 81% of the Rams' offensive snaps in 2017 and nearly 84% of the same snaps in 2018 before he started missing time during the Chiefs game. Through the first four weeks of the season, he has played just over 71% of the offensive snaps. The Rams didn't give Gurley what amounted to $40 million guaranteed over three seasons in 2018 to turn him into a back who carries the ball five times per game. After averaging between 22 and 23 touches per game in both 2017 and 2018, he has touched the ball 15 times per game this season.

The other disconcerting thing for the offense, aligned in part to Gurley's absence as a receiver before Sunday's loss to the Bucs, is their disappearing yards after catch. In 2017, the Rams averaged a staggering 6.6 YAC, which would have ranked as the fifth-highest figure over the prior decade. YAC is relatively inconsistent from year to year, but McVay was still able to coax 5.8 yards after catch from Goff's targets in 2018, which was good enough for seventh in the league. In 2019, the Rams rank 20th in average yards after catch, with just 4.9 yards per reception.

The Rams are still realistically at the point of figuring out what their offense is going to look like by the time we get to the postseason. It's a contrast to the 2017 and 2018 seasons, when Goff & Co. were able to hit the ground running. It also can't help that anyone who has ever worn a polo shirt around McVay is now an NFL head coach, forcing the Rams to rebuild their offensive coaching staff. The offense will likely end up looking just fine -- they did score on six of the eight possessions in which they didn't turn over the ball on Sunday -- but it's fair to say that they're in transition.

Guard Russell Westbrook will sit out the Houston Rockets' preseason opener against the Shanghai Sharks on Monday night, a source told ESPN.

The Rockets are taking a cautious approach during the preseason with Westbrook, who underwent arthroscopic surgery in the spring to clean up his right knee.

Westbrook, 30, the perennial All-Star the Rockets acquired in a July blockbuster trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder, has recently been cleared for live five-on-five action. He has participated in scrimmages at the Rockets' voluntary minicamp in Las Vegas and at their training camp over the weekend.

"I feel like I'm in a good place," Westbrook said of his health during Friday's media day. "I'll be ready to go on opening night."

Westbrook's knee issues originated in 2013 when then-Rockets guard Patrick Beverley ran into him during the first round of the playoffs. Westbrook suffered a torn meniscus and underwent surgery for a full repair. He went almost five years without any surgeries on his knee before having another scope last September, which caused him to miss all of training camp and the first two games of the regular season.

Westbrook averaged a triple-double (22.9 points, 11.1 rebounds and a league-leading 10.7 assists) for the third consecutive season in his final campaign for the Thunder, who opted to trade the longtime face of their franchise after Paul George's request to be dealt to the LA Clippers pushed Oklahoma City into a rebuilding phase.

Westbrook wanted to be traded to Houston to reunite with longtime friend and former Thunder teammate James Harden, believing that joining the Rockets maximized his chances of winning a championship.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks will reconvene Monday for the first time since their season ended with a heartbreaking six-game loss to the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference finals.

It also will be the first time this season Antetokounmpo will be asked about his future, but far from the last. It will happen again both times he plays in Los Angeles and all three times he visits New York. The same goes for when he travels to San Francisco. And Miami. And Chicago. And Dallas.

And, frankly, just about everywhere else.

There won't be a more discussed topic in the NBA this season, for good reason. The Bucks have already said they intend to offer Antetokounmpo a supermax extension on June 30, 2020. What Antetokounmpo decides to do once that extension is offered will have ripple effects across the league for years to come. This all hangs over the Bucks as they begin what they hope will be a season that ends with Milwaukee winning its second NBA title.

"We want to be successful over a long period of time and be competitive for a long time and be resourceful," Bucks general manager Jon Horst told ESPN. "That's the answer. That's the direction. That's the focus. Yes, I believe if we do that, that's what I think Giannis wants to be part of. Winning. A family environment. He's a loyal guy who loves Milwaukee, and Wisconsin, and the Bucks, and we want to continue to grow and sustain something that we want him to be part of and build."

The Bucks will spend the next 10 months building their case for why Antetokounmpo's future should lie with them.

A future where Giannis signs

"As long as ... we are all on the same page and we are all focused on [winning a championship]," Antetokounmpo told reporters this summer, "why not play for the Bucks 20 years? Why not play 25 years?"

Forget 20 or 25. The Bucks will be perfectly happy if the NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player simply signs on for another five next summer. And despite seeing so many stars change teams this summer, Horst and the Bucks are solely focused on convincing Antetokounmpo that he shouldn't follow their lead.

"I don't want to sound naive, and it definitely isn't arrogant," Horst told ESPN. "But I don't really concern myself with other superstars, other teams or their ability to keep or recruit guys.

"We are intentionally laser-focused on Milwaukee and building the culture, success and sustainability of our organization. I think if we stay focused on that, we'll be fine."

Milwaukee has made tangible strides in each of those categories and can credibly sell that to Antetokounmpo, this year and beyond. Culturally, the Bucks today are a vastly different team from the one that drafted him six years ago. The ancient, nondescript Bradley Center has been replaced with the state-of-the-art Fiserv Forum, which is paired with an equally modern practice facility across the street. Meanwhile, the hiring of Mike Budenholzer -- arguably the top coaching candidate on the market last summer -- showed that Milwaukee can compete with any team for talent. Budenholzer built a system perfectly suited to accentuate Antetokounmpo's skill set, helping the 24-year-old become the league's MVP.

After Antetokounmpo struggled at the FIBA World Cup earlier this month, with Greece falling in the group stage as he averaged just 14.8 points per game, it's likely he appreciates Budenholzer's system even more.

The most obvious thing Milwaukee can sell, though, is success. The Bucks won a league-best 60 games last season and enter the season as the favorites in the Eastern Conference. Caesars Sportsbook lists the Bucks at +550 to win the title, behind only the Los Angeles Lakers and LA Clippers. After not having won a playoff series since 2001, the Bucks came within two wins of advancing to the NBA Finals. The Bucks will hope to build on that this year by playing in the NBA Finals for the first time since the days of Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the early 1970s.

Milwaukee can point to what happened this summer as support for its sustainability argument. Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez and George Hill all re-signed on long-term deals. Budenholzer is signed to one too. Meanwhile, having Antetokounmpo means veterans chasing playoff success -- like Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez, who signed this summer -- will prioritize the Bucks.

"Giannis being there was a part of my decision," Lopez said. "He's the best player on the planet right now. He makes everyone on the floor better. He makes the Bucks what they are.

"We're a team, and we got to where we were playing as a team. He's going to do what he's going to do. But if we all do our jobs these next few years, it's going to be hard for him to say no to being in Milwaukee."

Then there is the money. The Bucks can offer Antetokounmpo a five-year extension worth $253.8 million, per ESPN's Bobby Marks. Any team hoping to sign Antetokounmpo in free agency using cap space in 2021 would be able to offer him only a four-year deal worth $161.3 million.

There are other factors too. For one, there's no NBA team to lure him "home" like the Clippers did with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard this summer and the Brooklyn Nets did with Kyrie Irving. Milwaukee is the only home Antetokounmpo has known in the United States. Unless the NBA expands to Athens in the next 10 months, or Antetokounmpo makes the very unlikely choice to leave the NBA to play in the Euroleague in 2021, the option to play in front of his hometown fans won't be available to him.

Meanwhile, unlike George, Leonard and Irving -- all of whom were with the teams they left for just two seasons or less -- Antetokounmpo has spent his entire career in Milwaukee, putting down extensive roots while growing with a team that's now a legitimate title contender.

That wasn't the case for the Charlotte Hornets, who lost Kemba Walker to Boston this summer. Walker had repeatedly said he had no desire to leave Charlotte, but eventually the lure of winning -- not a larger market -- became too much to ignore.

"Guys know what it takes to be good in this league as far as competing and having the best players and teams," Walker told ESPN. "There are guys who still love to be in small markets -- including me, of course. But obviously it didn't work out."

In 2014, after his rookie season, Antetokounmpo sent out a tweet in the wake of LeBron James choosing to go back to the Cleveland Cavaliers in free agency.

"I'll never leave the team and the city of Milwaukee 'til we build the team to a championship level team ... " he wrote.

Milwaukee has built that championship-level team. If Antetokounmpo stays, Milwaukee will remain one for years to come. And after several stars chose to go to big markets this summer, Milwaukee will hope to buck that trend next year.

"You could say this summer that the big markets won [in free agency]," Horst said, "but what I think players want is to love where they come to work and to feel they can win at the highest level. I think we have a chance to be a top market in the NBA landscape because the top markets in the NBA do those things and not because of the weather or per capita income or location or whatever."

A future where Giannis doesn't sign

"As long as ... we are all on the same page and we are all focused on [winning a championship], why not play for the Bucks 20 years? Why not play 25 years?"

Antetokounmpo did say those words this summer, but how many times have we heard stars say similar things in the past -- only to leave soon afterward?

• Kyrie Irving, last October, about staying in Boston: "If you guys will have me, I plan on re-signing here.

• Dwight Howard, in March 2012, about staying in Orlando: "I'm not like those guys that people try to pay me to be. I'm loyal. I just love this city too much. I want to win a championship."

• LaMarcus Aldridge, in July 2014, about staying in Portland: "I'm happy to stay, happy to be here, happy with the direction the team has gone the last year or two."

• Kevin Durant, in July 2015, about staying in Oklahoma City: "It's our year next year! Then Ima sign back and build a sick ass house and keep stacking chips!! That's [the] goal."

Those are just a few of many examples. And, like everyone else, players are certainly allowed to change their minds. And until he signs his name to that $253.8 million contract extension, Antetokounmpo will have the option to do so as well.

ESPN's Malika Andrews reported after that devastating loss to the Raptors in May that reaching the NBA Finals this season could play a part in what Antetokounmpo chooses to do. And that was before the Raptors lost Leonard -- clearing a significant hurdle from Milwaukee's path to doing just that.

And although cash works in Milwaukee's favor when it comes to the amount it can pay Antetokounmpo, the team's reticence toward paying the luxury tax this summer is seen around the league as a strike against the Bucks.

"They didn't pay the tax," said one Eastern Conference executive, when asked for a reason Antetokounmpo could choose to leave. "They actively avoided doing it."

Milwaukee could've retained 2016-17 Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon, who started all 64 regular-season games he played last season. Instead, the Bucks agreed to a sign-and-trade with the Indiana Pacers in July for a first-round pick and two second-round selections.

The move gave Milwaukee long-term flexibility, both financially and in terms of the additional draft capital. And if Milwaukee wins the title in June, or even just reaches the Finals, the Bucks' decision to let Brogdon go will be vindicated. But if the Bucks fall short of their goals, losing a key contributor to duck the tax line will be seen as a contributing factor.

And in a league where players are exerting more control over teams than ever, every little thing teams do matters.

"Players have all the leverage," said an executive with a small-market team. "I would say it's a players' league right now. They get to dictate where they want to go and what they want to do."

That was certainly the case this summer as one star player after another changed teams. Leonard's departure, in particular, raised eyebrows. No, he had never declared he would stay in Toronto during his season with the Raptors. But the NBA has always maintained that small-market teams can attract and retain star talent if those teams are run well and compete for championships. Leonard's choosing to leave Toronto after a season in which the Raptors won a title dealt a blow to that argument's credibility.

It also generated a ton of chatter this summer at the league's annual meetings at the Las Vegas Summer League, where NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted there remains room for improvement.

"At the end of the day, you want to make sure you have a league where every team is in a position to compete," Silver said. "We have work to do."

Finding a solution won't be easy. The supermax has not been enough to entice players such as Leonard and Anthony Davis to stay with their original teams. That has led some within the league to argue that teams need to have an even greater advantage than what the supermax currently offers them. However, radical structural changes such as a hard salary cap or an NFL-style franchise tag system have always been, and remain, non-starters in the eyes of the union, sources said.

Still, even within the current system, it is possible for small-market teams to compete at the highest level. Milwaukee is proof of that. So are the Utah Jazz, and the Spurs have been one of the league's model organizations for decades.

Pulling it off, however, requires walking a fine line of chasing championships while being judicious when it comes to spending -- be it draft capital, money or both.

On the other hand, a team such as the Clippers -- owned by the 14th-wealthiest man in America, playing in the nation's second-largest TV market -- can make a trade like the one it did for George involving several first-round draft picks and know that it can always fall back on free agency as a reasonable alternative.

"The big-market teams can say, 'Who cares?'" said the small-market executive. "They can say, 'We can replace their picks in free agency because we know we can get players that way.'"

If Antetokounmpo turns down the supermax extension next summer, he'll immediately become one of those players big-market teams target. Without a long-term deal in place, the Bucks would almost be forced into trading him a year before his contract is up so as not to risk losing him for nothing in free agency in 2021 the way the Raptors did with Leonard this past summer.

And if Antetokounmpo decides his long-term future isn't in Milwaukee, he'll also have the leverage to affect where he winds up. Davis certainly did in getting to the Lakers this summer. Leonard, on the other hand, wound up being traded to Toronto in 2018 despite his demands to go to Los Angeles.

It certainly worked out for the Raptors. But it also worked out for Leonard, who had to wait only a few extra months to get what he ultimately wanted and added a second championship ring along the way.

"At the end of the day, we want to be a league where strong management is rewarded and ... every team has the opportunity to compete," Silver said.

If, 10 months from now, Antetokounmpo decides not to reward the Bucks with his signature, the NBA will have to accept that the argument has been dealt a powerful blow.