Adil Rashid has withdrawn from Yorkshire's Vitality Blast squads and been referred back to the ECB's medical staff after advising the club's medical staff that his shoulder injury is "the worst it has been this summer".

Rashid's shoulder issue was first made public when England's World Cup squad was announced, and was cited as a reason for the inclusion of Liam Dawson over Joe Denly.

While it was not sufficiently serious that it caused him to miss any World Cup games, Rashid revealed that he had needed an injection, and he said that his variations had caused him pain for much of the tournament.

"[I've] probably not bowled them as much," he said after the semi-final win against Australia. "The main reason was because of my shoulder because I've got a bit of a shoulder problem.

"But I knew that [the googly] is a big weapon for me, that's one of my big weapons, my variations, looking to create stuff. My shoulder had that little bit of problem and I know I still had to bowl it even if I was in a bit of a pain."

He had declared himself "100% fit" after the group stages, but has yet to return to action for Yorkshire amid concerns about the injury. It follows news that Mark Wood, another World Cup winner, has been ruled out for the rest of the season with the side injury he sustained in the final.

Rashid had been in Yorkshire's squad for Friday night's game against Worcestershire, but declared himself unfit after training on Thursday.

The legspinner's availability has previously been a source of contention, with Yorkshire unimpressed after he was given a Test recall last summer despite having signed a white-ball only contract with the club. However, he subsequently agreed It came as something of a surprise that Rashid a new all-formats deal for the 2019 season.

He was also handed an England central contract for both Test and white-ball cricket - although he has not played a Test since the first game of the West Indies tour, and appears to be behind Jack Leach in the pecking order.

This week, Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire's director of cricket, told the Yorkshire Post that there was "no guarantee" Rashid would play red-ball cricket for the club this season, and said they would assess his contract situation at the end of the year.

"Beyond that, what we've said is that we'll wait and see what England do with central contracts, and then we'll sit down with Adil once he knows what his England situation is with regards to potentially Test cricket going forward, and so on," Moxon said.

"We'll basically assess things once the England contract situation is resolved."

Andre Russell has ruled himself out of West Indies' first two T20Is against India starting on Saturday. The allrounder had only just returned to action after knee surgery but experienced "some discomfort" while playing in the Global T20 Canada and then expressed his unavailability to the West Indies selectors. However, only hours after a CWI press release had said this, Russell turned out to play for Vancouver Knights against Edmonton Royals on Friday.

Carlos Brathwaite, the West Indies T20 captain, launched a stirring defence of Russell in the pre-match press conference in Florida. "I think he's been knocked in the press a bit because of his injury woes. And I think it's easy for us to see him hobbling around the field and just take for granted that he's injured but we can also look at it on the other side and say he can be home, he could be elsewhere and not trying to play for the West Indies."

"And speaking for myself as captain of the T20 team and speaking for myself as Andre's friend, whenever we speak about playing for West Indies, that's always his main goal. And we've seen in the World Cup -whether he was 100% or not, it's debatable - but the fact that he wanted to be at the World Cup, wanted to pull on the shirt and wanted to perform for the people in the West Indies and his mates in the dressing room, I think, is testament to the person he is. And I think we need to start commending the fact that he actually tries to get on the park and stop lambasting the fact that he probably doesn't stay on it till the end of the 50 overs or the 20 overs.

"Even against my better judgment, I told him to sit out this series, but he really wanted to play, he really wanted to come and show off his skills and show off what he does in franchise cricket for the West Indies. Unfortunately, he took another knock and he doesn't think that if he comes here that he'd be doing justice to other people who could be here and are 100%. Obviously, he's a big loss, not only on the field but off the field. In the dressing room, in and around the team, he's a big character, very jovial and in my eyes, a leader in the dressing room as well. But obviously, if we need to get him ready for the Twenty20 World Cup, we have to do without him for a couple of series, I prefer that than pushing him in this series and making a long term injury."

With Russell absent, middle-order batsman Jason Mohammed gets to revive his West Indies career. "He [Mohammed] is a player with lots of experience in all three formats and - having done well for Trinidad & Tobago as well as Guyana Amazon Warriors," Floyd Reifer, West Indies interim head coach, said.

"It is not easy to the fill the shoes of someone like Andre Russell, who has dominated T20 cricket all over the world and helped West Indies win the ICC T20 World Cup on two occasions. We believe Jason is capable of good performances and we back him to perform at this level and win games as well."

Russell was last seen in a West Indies shirt in the World Cup, but after playing four matches, his knees gave out and he had to be replaced. The 31-year old played his first match since recovering from that injury on July 25 but he didn't bowl or bat in it.

Mohammed, who last played for West Indies in the ODI series against Bangladesh in July last year, was Trinidad & Tobago's highest run-scorer last season in the four-day domestic tournament. The 32-year old captained a weakened West Indies side that toured Pakistan for a T20I series last year, where he made just 28 runs in three games. He has played nine T20Is and averages 18.

The first two T20Is against India are scheduled to be held at the Broward County Stadium in Florida on Saturday and Sunday. The third and final T20I will be played at the Guyana National Stadium on Tuesday.

Boyd Rankin will become the first Irishman to play county cricket as an overseas player after signing for Derbyshire for the remainder of their Vitality Blast campaign.

Irish players had previously counted as local players in county cricket, but after their ascent to Test status anyone playing international cricket and signing a new contract will count as an overseas player.

Rankin, the 6ft 8in fast bowler who has played international cricket for both Ireland and England, will be available for Friday night's game against Northamptonshire.

Players were able to honour existing contracts until the end of this season - like Paul Stirling and Tim Murtagh, for example - but from next year will count towards overseas quotas. Counties are currently allowed to field one overseas player in the County Championship and the Royal London Cup, and two in the Blast.

The change in regulations may have wide-reaching implications for Ireland.

For example, Murtagh, who took five wickets in a brilliant new-ball spell against England last week, remains undecided as to whether he will choose to play for Ireland, or instead extend his contract as a local player.

"It's getting to the stage where we have to choose one or the other and I haven't really made my mind up yet," he told the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast.

"There are still discussions to be had with both sides but unfortunately that loophole has been shut and we can't continue playing in county cricket as local players.

"I'm going to have to make quite a tough decision at the end of the summer and decide which way I want to keep going."

Rankin will become the first England Test cap to play for Derbyshire since Rikki Clarke in 2008 when he makes his debut.

He had previously played for the club in 2006 and 2007, before a spell with Warwickshire that saw him win England selection.

Dave Houghton, Derbyshire's head of cricket, said: "We have been looking for an additional fast bowler to strengthen our current squad for the T20.

"Boyd has international experience and will fit in well with the bowlers that we already have. With the pace and bounce that he generates, he will bring a new dimension and give us that bit extra."

Sourav Ganguly is "definitely interested" in becoming India's coach, but not right now. The former captain said that his plate was full with current commitments, but once those were done, he would certainly put forward his candidature for the post.

"Definitely, I'm interested but not at this point of time. Let one more phase go then I will throw my name into the fray," Ganguly told Press Trust of India. "Currently, I'm associated with too many things -- IPL, CAB [Cricket Association of Bengal, where he's president], TV commentary. Let me complete this. But I will definitely put my hat at some stage. Provided I get selected. But definitely I'm interested. Not now, but in the future."

The BCCI has called for applications for the team's coaching staff, with the current incumbents' contracts set to end after India's tour of West Indies. All of Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Bangar, B Arun and R Sridhar have had their names automatically entered into the selection process, which will be conducted by the reconstituted Cricket Advisory Committee of Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy.

Ganguly was part of the original CAC, alongside Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, when the current coaching staff were appointed, and he felt that among the current applicants, there wasn't any 'heavyweight' name.

"Going by the applicants, I don't see any heavyweight names," he said. "I heard Mahela (Jayawardene) would apply but ultimately he didn't... There are not many big names who have applied for the coach's job. Ultimately I don't know what the panel will decide. They have been around for a while.

"We will see how big the term they will give. Not many names who have applied. Whoever they feel is good they should do it."

Ganguly steered clear of evaluating Shastri's term as the coach, saying: "I will hold my opinion on that. I don't think it's right for me to say about that. I'm too far from the system that decides the coach."

Virat Kohli was asked who his choice of coach would be at the Indian team's press conference before their departure for the tour of West Indies, and he had indicated his preference for continuing with the current set-up, saying the team had prospered under Shastri and the players liked and respected him.

Kohli also said that the CAC hadn't asked for his input yet, and he would offer his opinion if asked. Subsequently, Kapil Dev said Kohli's opinion should be given due consideration. "That's his opinion. We have to respect everybody's opinion," Kapil said.

The interviews for the new support staff are expected to take place on August 14 and 15.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Las Vegas Aces coach and president Bill Laimbeer said he had three goals in having Las Vegas host the All-Star Game. He met two of them: getting the All-Stars suites in the hotel instead of standard rooms and getting each player four tickets to the game instead of the usual two.

The one thing he couldn't accomplish was getting the players first-class plane tickets to and from the game.

"I put $20,000 in our budget to fly the players first class, and the league said you couldn't do that," he told The Associated Press. "The league refused to let us do that. I made a complaint at the board of governors meeting about that specific issue. They are our best assets, they are our All-Stars; treat them with respect. I apologized to them that I couldn't get that done."

The league said it worked with Las Vegas but couldn't do everything Laimbeer wanted.

"MGM Resorts and the Aces were highly engaged throughout the yearlong planning for what became a truly memorable All-Star Weekend, including bringing to the table enhancements to the player experience. While we worked together on many of those elements, there were others that we determined might create an unfair advantage for the team moving forward," WNBA chief operating officer Christy Hedgpeth said. "WNBA players are world-class athletes, and ultimately, we are committed to working with them and our other stakeholders to develop an economic model that can support additional improvements to the player experience throughout the year, including the All-Star Game."

The biggest change Laimbeer said he would make to the All-Star Game would be the time of the contest.

"Everything was positive except one issue: The game started at 12:30 p.m. That was the one complaint that everyone had," he said. "They would have liked to see it start at 5 o'clock. It's the All-Star Game. You want to get the best time slot, as best as you possibly can. That's a show that hasn't been on in a long time in the WNBA. I don't know what the ratings are going to be. I think if it was in a prime-time situation, it would be better."

According to Sports Business Daily, the All-Star Game drew a 0.5 overnight rating, down from a 0.6 in 2018 and equal to 2017's rating.

On the whole, coaches, players and WNBA executives were thrilled with the show that Las Vegas put on for the All-Star Game last weekend.

From an entertaining game to first-class entertainment, the Nevada city got rave reviews.

"It was electric. It was positive. And I think we should have it here every year," All-Star captain and Aces player A'ja Wilson said. "I don't think I have a say in it, but just the feel of it. Everyone kind of was here. You have players that were not even in competition at all here to support their teammates. That's what it's all about. We're all coming together and watching a game and playing a game that we love, and I just had so much fun."

There were dozens of players not involved in the All-Star Game in attendance in Las Vegas. Laimbeer said the team reached out to players to come to Vegas to help market All-Star Weekend. The Aces offered free hotel rooms to players who did come in exchange for their appearance at a fan fest and parties.

"Everything has just kind of been bigger and grander," said team captain Elena Delle Donne. "Even right when you land, you're seeing the marketing behind it. It's why the Aces have been so successful these last two years."

While there most likely won't be an All-Star Game next year because of the Olympics, Las Vegas has put itself in a good position to host the event in the future.

Manchester United are set to sign Harry Maguire after reaching a breakthrough with Leicester on Friday morning, sources have told ESPN FC.

According to the sources, United have agreed a world-record fee for a defender -- around £80 million plus add-ons -- to pry Maguire away from the King Power Stadium.

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The 26-year-old is set to undergo a medical on Saturday before signing a five-year contract in the next few days and will be eligible to make his United debut against Chelsea at Old Trafford on Aug. 11.

Carmelo Anthony says the end of his tenure with the Houston Rockets made him question whether he wanted to still play in the NBA.

"I felt like the game didn't want me back at that point in time," Anthony told ESPN's Stephen A. Smith on First Take, referring to a period in which he described himself as being "emotionally vulnerable."

Now, Anthony says, the passion to play is back.

"I'm in the gym every single day," Anthony said. He also noted that "silence is not my surrender" and that he has been quiet until now because he felt like he needed to step away from the game to "reevaluate myself, reevaluate my career, reevaluate my life."

Anthony, a 10-time NBA All-Star and six-time All-NBA player, last suited up for the Rockets for a 10-game stint that ended early in the 2018 season.

He said he doesn't blame friend Chris Paul or even two-time former coach Mike D'Antoni, and said he never had a conversation with James Harden about his Rockets exit.

Anthony said being told by Rockets general manager Daryl Morey that he was being let go was a shock.

"He came in and basically said, 'Look, your services are no longer needed,'" Anthony said of his conversation with Morey. "I was like, 'What? Hold up. What the hell are you talking about?' ... You telling me I can't make a 9-, 10-man rotation on this team?'"

Anthony said of his conversation with Morey that he "didn't like how that went down" and that it caused him to have doubts about himself.

"That was an ego hit. That was a pride hit," Anthony said. "I started questioning myself after that. Can I still do this? What did I do? I asked him this. ... He just said it wasn't working out.

"When somebody in power that tells you that they no longer need your services ... I've been utilizing my services for a long time. For you to tell me you don't need that no more. I honestly felt that I was fired. I felt like [what] other people go through on a day-to-day basis. People get fired. I honestly felt like I got fired."

In addition to the Rockets, Anthony has played for the Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets with his greatest success coming with the Knicks and Nuggets.

Anthony won the league's scoring title in the 2012-13 season, averaging 28.3 points per game. That season was the last time the Knicks made the playoffs and began a five-season absence from the postseason for Anthony, who had made the playoffs for 10 straight seasons over his time in Denver and New York.

"I never said anything about a farewell tour," Anthony said in responding to reports that he wants one last season and a Dwyane Wade-like, season-long goodbye around the league.

Anthony is considered a future Hall of Famer whenever he does retire. He is the only three-time Olympic gold medalist in men's basketball, and he won a national championship at Syracuse. In his NBA career, Anthony has averaged 24.0 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

But retirement doesn't seem to be on the forefront of Anthony's mind right now.

"I know I can still play."

WHEN ZION WILLIAMSON arrived at the sold-out Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas for his prime-time debut at the NBA summer league in early July, his choice of footwear had the NBA buzzing.

Could Puma actually pull this off?

A year after Puma landed 2018 No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton for the company's reentry into the basketball sneaker market, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft walked into the arena for his first NBA game wearing a white and red blast pair of the Puma RS-X Reinvention.

And while he hit the court that night wearing a pair of Nike Kyrie 4s from his Duke days, he spent the rest of summer league alternating between sneakers from Puma and Jordan Brand as he sat and watched his New Orleans Pelicans teammates from the sidelines. Those two companies had emerged as the front-runners in the Zion sweepstakes, a bidding war that saw some competitors offer deals that could've paid the young superstar nearly $20 million per year.

In the end, Michael Jordan got his man.

"Zion's incredible determination, character and play are inspiring," Michael Jordan said in a news release announcing the deal. "He's an essential part of the new talent that will help lead the brand into the future."

But the path to putting the most famous North Carolina alum's logo on the feet of the former Duke star wasn't nearly as simple as a 10-mile drive down Tobacco Road.

SONNY VACCARO HAD a plan.

The legendary sports marketing pioneer, who famously pushed Nike to sign Jordan 35 years ago, was serving as an adviser to Williamson and Lee Anderson, Williamson's stepfather. From the beginning of the process, Vaccaro tried to create a sense of urgency around the May 14 draft lottery.

"My conversation with the family was that I see dead spots [marketwise] in this draft," he said. "My speech was that, 'We're going to do this early. It's going to be done before you go there.'"

Unfortunately, by the time Williamson officially declared for the draft on April 15, the timeline to get a deal done had already gone awry.

Anderson had played college basketball at Clemson in the late 1970s alongside James "Chubby" Wells, who went on to find success as an NBA agent in the mid-2000s, representing role players around the league like Dale Davis and Ramon Sessions after his own 12-year career playing professional basketball overseas.

The family's plan was to have Wells and Anderson form a new sports agency, centered on the generational talent and appeal of Williamson once he turned pro. Before that could happen, Wells needed to become recertified with the National Basketball Players Association, after his prior player representation approval window had lapsed.

But Wells failed the agent certification test administered by the NBPA -- a mandate for all agents looking to represent players in negotiations with teams. The 50-question multiple-choice test can only be taken once per calendar year, meaning Wells is unable to retest again until January 2020.

With Wells unable to serve as Williamson's official representative, the family turned to a different option, hiring longtime marketing agent Gina Ford and her newly formed Prime Sports agency for representation in marketing deals. Still, the setback made the likelihood of finalizing such a complex deal in advance of the lottery highly unlikely.

In 2003, when LeBron James hit the sneaker market after declaring for the NBA, then-agent Aaron Goodwin was adamant that he sign his shoe deal before the draft lottery, minimizing the importance of where he'd land in a year when smaller markets Cleveland, Denver and Toronto had the best chance of landing the top overall pick. He ended up landing a seven-year, $87 million deal with Nike that was announced the day of the lottery, before the Cavaliers landed the top pick.

Williamson entered the NBA with as high a profile as any draft pick since James. He simultaneously built equity with fans through a glowing personality and a nonstop series of highlight dunks that exploded almost nightly on Instagram. By the time he turned pro, Williamson had 2.9 million followers on Instagram, a total higher than more than half of the players in the 2019 NBA All-Star Game.

But even so, the delay might've been a costly one.

"In my opinion, if it was done a certain way and before the draft lottery, the deal could have dwarfed LeBron's original deal," Goodwin said.

WHEN PUMA REENTERED the NBA scene a year ago, the company did so with a mix of promising rookies and expressive veterans, with DeMarcus Cousins as the company's highest-profile established player. But behind the scenes, the company was prioritizing a yearlong plan to pitch Zion Williamson, who had yet to play a college basketball game. Puma knew the kind of instant impact, visibility and awareness that adding him would've brought to the company.

As the thinking in marketing circles went, what Allen Iverson did for Reebok, and what Stephen Curry has achieved with Under Armour, Zion could do for Puma. He would instantly become the face of not just their basketball brand, but the entire brand, on a global scale. He could uplift and change the trajectory of the entire company.

The brand had laid a foundation of disruptive marketing both online through its social media channels and with a series of physical events at All-Star Weekend and in key markets. Over the course of the year, players and consumers had responded positively to the colorways and designs of its first performance models in almost two decades.

But the company knew that a strong social media presence and flashy on-court sneakers wouldn't be enough to land Williamson. So when they met with the future No. 1 pick earlier this spring, they offered him an impressive financial commitment: a deal that soared as high as $15 million per year, plus the potential to add an additional $3 million a year in bonuses, according to industry sources.

The initial meeting went well, and in ongoing talks throughout the following months, Puma appeared to have presented Williamson with the kind of comprehensive package -- both financial and intangible -- that he wasn't going to get with another brand.

When Williamson walked into summer league wearing one of Puma's casual sneakers, company executives were beaming. Heading into Las Vegas Summer League action, Puma execs believed they'd get a final answer from Williamson on their pitch by the end of the weekend. Seeing him start the weekend in a Puma shoe made them believe they had a great shot of landing him.

BEFORE BEING HIRED by Zion Williamson and his family, Gina Ford had been most known in marketing circles for her work over the past decade with another generational athlete: track and field icon Usain Bolt. The nine-time gold medalist has built a business portfolio highlighted by as many as 16 endorsement deals with several massive global brands. However, it was his partnership with Puma, a deal he's had in place since 2003 that at its peak paid him $10 million per year, that was most intriguing to industry insiders who saw Ford's partnership with Williamson as the pathway to a massive offer from the brand.

After signing on to represent Williamson, Ford quickly worked to put together meetings not only with sneaker companies but with global companies such as 2K Sports, Beats by Dre, Mercedes-Benz and Powerade.

By early May, though, the sneaker deal negotiations simply weren't progressing. While the family knew the switch from Wells to Ford's Prime Sports group would create a delay on the preferred timeline Vaccaro had laid out for them, they were still hopeful they'd get a deal done before Williamson's NBA destination was known.

When the initial reveal of the draft order showed that the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks had jumped into the top four, it seemed as if that delay might have actually worked to Williamson's favor. But in just 16 seconds, deputy commissioner Mark Tatum dashed those hopes, opening envelopes to reveal the logos of the Lakers and Knicks. Only Memphis and New Orleans remained on the board.

Had the Knicks landed the top pick, it would've made Williamson the most marketable star in the NBA's largest market. Brands would've been able to put his face up all over New York City, not only as the face of their brand, but as the face of the potentially resurgent Knicks -- a team that would've gone into the summer having added the No. 1 pick, and made themselves far more attractive to established superstar free agents on July 1 in the process.

"We were talking about the New York Knicks," Vaccaro said. "I said, 'You have to understand, they are pathetic. More than pathetic. There's only one thing that's constant -- everybody knows who they are.'"

Vaccaro had held loose strategy conversations with Anderson before Ford came on board, but she took overall strategic direction upon signing in mid-April. Yet two weeks after the draft lottery, Williamson was still without a sneaker deal, and he had only taken a single official brand presentation to that point.

The family pivoted again, signing with CAA Sports on May 30 and dumping Ford the following day via email. His newly hired full-service agency features four primary basketball agents and three co-heads of client management, and it has negotiated more than $4 billion in contracts for a roster featuring 75 NBA players. CAA would aim to provide 360-degree representation for Williamson, both in team deals and on-court matters, along with all marketing negotiations, endorsement relationship management and off-court endeavors.

The shift meant starting over, though with the lottery behind them, there was no longer a sense of urgency to get a deal done. Williamson -- and the rest of the world -- knew he'd be in New Orleans. And the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, which set the rookie scale salaries, guaranteed that Williamson would make nearly $10 million this year, and potentially more than $44 million over his first four years.

With the threat of a lawsuit from Ford in the air, Williamson first filed his own suit a week before the draft, claiming that the marketing agreement he signed was "unlawful" and therefore void, because Ford had failed to register in North Carolina with the state registry as a marketing agent pursuing student-athletes. Ford also failed to include boldface type on the contract's signature page notifying Williamson that by signing the agreement, he'd be relinquishing his amateur status as a college athlete, as required by the North Carolina Uniform Athlete Agents Act.

Meanwhile, Ford threw one more curveball into the process, filing her lawsuit the day before the draft, claiming $100 million in damages for breach of contract, after initially securing a signed marketing agreement contract that called for no termination options for the first five years. In fact, the original contract stated that Ford could only be terminated "for cause," a rarity in the NBA, where agents and managers are often fired on a whim, without reason. The additional legal hang-up forced CAA Sports to proceed cautiously in its initial meetings with sneaker brands.

In her court filing, Ford outlined that during her time working for Williamson, Prime Sports had already "successfully secured, obtained and negotiated" a potential sneaker deal with "monetary compensation of an immediate $100 Million." According to Ford, that meeting took place on April 28, although the exact brand is not specified in the filing. The brand is believed to be either Puma or Li-Ning, according to industry sources. However, Ford only names Puma in her court filing among the list of brands she had been actively negotiating with.

It's also unclear from the court filing whether that nine-figure total refers to an actual upfront payment upon signing or just a guaranteed total over the life of the negotiated deal, but either way the amount would've been unprecedented. The only active players to receive a nine-figure sneaker deal at any point in their careers are LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, James Harden and Derrick Rose, who among them have nine MVP awards.

WHEN WILLIAMSON ANNOUNCED his Jordan Brand deal with an Instagram post that featured him Photoshopped into a "ZION" jersey, it was an extra twist of the knife for Adidas. The Jumpman logo was on the right chest of the modified jersey; in the original version of that photo, in that same spot, were the famed three stripes of Adidas.

Adidas was linked to Williamson throughout his high school career, sponsoring both his Spartanburg Day high school team and the SC Supreme AAU team that he headlined and Anderson directed. He appeared on the cover of SLAM Magazine at just 16 years old, wearing that Spartanburg Day jersey with the Adidas logo prominently featured.

Even with the company shifting resources away from basketball toward entertainment partnerships, it seemed like their relationship with Williamson would transcend that trend. The company saw him as a potential signature star, worthy of being put immediately alongside their focal point players, James Harden, Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell.

Williamson wore Adidas products on and off the court at Spartanburg Day, demonstrating his ability to be a potential game-changer for Adidas. The company invested resources in filming the last two years of his high school career, with since-shelved plans to release a documentary at some point after he turned pro. Over the past several months, a loosely organized "Zion Committee" had even been formed by the brand, quietly putting together presentation decks and product designs for their eventual pitch.

Ultimately, Adidas never even presented to the family.

In a case of history repeating itself, the seriousness of Adidas' commitment to Williamson waned before terms could be put on the table. It was eerily reminiscent of 2003, when Adidas had talked up a $100 million offer to LeBron James, only to come to the table with $60 million guaranteed, which disappointed Vaccaro and ended with James landing with Nike.

Before Adidas' potential meeting with Williamson, company executives opted to halt plans of an offer that would've exceeded $10 million annually for a length of as many as 10 years. However, one particular element of the planned pitch was already in motion and too far along to be canceled.

While the meeting between Adidas and Williamson was to have taken place in Los Angeles in late May, across the country, in Williamson's hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Adidas was putting the finishing touches on a new outdoor basketball court.

The court donation, which had already been cleared with city planners and local parks and recreation leaders, was intended to be a show of the brand's commitment to making an impact in Williamson's childhood community. Instead, the court, shining in Spartanburg Day blue and red, lives on as a reminder of what could have been.

WHEN DWYANE WADE left Jordan Brand for Li-Ning in 2012, he set the stage for a new generation of NBA players to sign endorsement deals with China-based sneaker companies. However, historically, Chinese companies have looked to sign more established All-Star-level players to signature shoe deals, tapping into an existing fan base and awareness level throughout the region. Rookies, as the thinking inside those companies goes, don't have those things.

Zion Williamson was the exception.

Both Li-Ning and Anta prepared aggressive offers, believing that Williamson offered a bridge to the United States sneaker market that no Chinese company has yet been able to crack.

Li-Ning worked months in advance of a potential meeting to build at least seven-player exclusive editions of their YuShaui XIII and Sonic 7 models in Williamson's size 16, in Duke hues no less. Each pair featured a tandem of Zion-specific logos, one a caricature of his commonly seen biceps flex, the other a devil-horned "D" icon honoring his time as a Blue Devil. Variations in low-top, high-cut and mid-cut were offered to try out, speaking to the brand's eagerness to sign him, but also to their willingness to create custom footwear to fit his needs.

View this post on Instagram

A never before seen look at sample PEs, Li-Ning produced for Zion Williamson. Equipped with Duke color schemes and branding ? (via @NickDePaula)

A post shared by SneakerCenter (@sneakercenter) on Aug 2, 2019 at 6:36am PDT

Like Puma, Li-Ning backed up that eagerness with a serious financial commitment: up to $19 million per year, according to industry sources.

Anta was similarly aggressive. The brand, located in the uniquely beachside city of Xiamen -- dubbed by locals as the "South Beach of China" -- was hoping to host the family at its headquarters for a pitch. The goal was to show off their manufacturing factory just 90 minutes away, where they'll often custom-make sneakers for current brand headliner Klay Thompson in his very own branch of the production area, and also to impress Williamson and his family with the sheer scope and scale of the Chinese market, where Anta boasts more than 10,000 retail stores.

Instead, a select team of Anta executives and product leaders ventured to Los Angeles, meeting with Zion and his family over a span of a couple of hours in advance of the draft, while walking them through product plans ahead. They'd eventually make a starting offer of $15 million per year.

TEN DAYS BEFORE the 2019 NBA draft, the doors to the Steve Prefontaine Hall just beyond the pond-lined entrance to Nike's 286-acre Beaverton, Oregon, campus were covered with a message:

Welcome Zion & Family.

Underneath the text, the Nike Swoosh and Jordan Brand Jumpman stood side by side, as the company presented a unified front to set the stage for its biggest athlete pitch in more than 15 years. While LeBron James and Kevin Durant both received industry-defining deals from Nike Basketball upon entering the league, the company's pitch to Zion Williamson was distinctly different.

Though the Swoosh was present, the plan from the start was for this to be a Jordan Brand pitch, grounded in the belief that Williamson could take the $3 billion sub-brand of Nike Inc. centered around the Air Jordan line to even greater heights. He would potentially wear the upcoming Air Jordan 34, the brand's flagship annual model that Michael Jordan himself made famous during his playing career. Eventually, he would receive his own signature Jordan Brand model, with a reveal of that sneaker coming as early as All-Star Weekend in Chicago, Jordan's home for most of his professional playing career.

Williamson would join Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook as the only Jordan Brand players with a signature shoe, and he'd bolster the brand's visibility in a league where only 7% of active players wear Jordan Brand sneakers. Conversely, more than 67% of NBA players wear Nike-branded models, which has led the company to put an internal emphasis on balancing their star rosters. They moved Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum from Nike to Jordan this offseason, but Williamson would be the centerpiece of that strategy.

"Over the last 34 years we've built an incredible roster of talent with the same determination and greatness as MJ," said Howard White, Jordan VP of brand affairs. "There is something special about Zion that reminds me of MJ when he was younger."

While Williamson was being pitched as a Jordan Brand athlete, Nike made sure to sell him on its vast company-wide resources, making available both new technologies and new manufacturing techniques that could improve product performance for the player.

Ironically, Williamson's worst moment in a Nike sneaker turned out to be one of the best moments for the company. When his PG 2.5 fell apart 33 seconds into the nationally televised showdown with North Carolina, Nike was able to give Williamson an early firsthand look at those vast company-wide resources. They sprung into action to design a custom sneaker for the rest of his college career that would support the needs of Williamson's unique blend of speed and power. The personal attention they were able to give him gave Williamson and his family a comfort level with Nike they might not have had otherwise.

Still, Nike wouldn't leave anything to chance.

As they outlined the plan to figuratively and literally support Williamson throughout his career, they highlighted the Nike Sport Research Lab, home of the company's Innovation Kitchen. It's where Nike develops the next performance innovations for sneakers down the road, sometimes as far off as five to 10 years. Some of them may eventually make their way into an Air Zion sneaker. Some may never happen.

But just as important as what was happening in the NSRL was the setting itself: the Mia Hamm Building. Not only is it one of the largest on Nike's campus -- stand it up vertically, and it'd be the tallest building in the Portland region -- but it's named for one of Nike's legendary athletes. And it's not alone in that distinction.

Nearly 300 athletes are highlighted in bronzed portraits along each pillar of the open-air walkways between Nike's buildings. Vinyl posters of icons across all sports, all genders and all races alternate on the uphill walk toward the Jerry Rice Building.

Athletes often leave the Nike headquarters impressed, but the one central theme of the brand thought to have resonated most for Williamson wasn't any of the near-term sneaker designs presented or any snappy campaign taglines. He also simply left millions on the table with this decision.

It's the way athletes are celebrated -- almost mythologized -- by the company over the course of history, both externally to fans across the world and internally with its personal relationships.

Just 130 steps to the left of the family's "Pre Hall" welcome sign was The Michael Jordan Building.

That significance wasn't lost on the 18-year-old. One day, well down the road, dreams of The Zion Williamson Building lie ahead, in the decades to come.

"He told us he would 'shock the world' and asked us to believe him," Jordan said. "We do."

Mike Trout is squarely in the passing-Hall-of-Famers-in-career-WAR-every-few-days period of his career. He is still 27.

If I tell you that 27-year-old Mike Trout has more career WAR than, say, Barry Larkin, you could hear it as an incredible tribute to Trout, but you could also hear it as a diminishment of Larkin -- and if we diminish Larkin, we diminish the power of the tribute. To really appreciate Trout, it helps to appreciate just how incredible the Hall of Famers he is passing were and to understand how it is plausible that Trout is already actually more valuable than they were.

Trout started July with 69.5 career WAR. With another fantastic month -- he hit .286/.392/.821, ended July leading the American League in WAR and raised his career mark to 71.1 -- he passed eight more Hall of Famers. In Trout's honor, we will consider those eight.

Ed Delahanty, 69.7 career WAR (70th all time among position players)

How good Delahanty was:

1. Across the decade of the 1890s, these are the statistical categories in which Ed Delahanty led all of Major League Baseball: Hits, total bases, doubles, slugging percentage and OPS+. He was second in homers, RBIs, triples and WAR. He was third in runs scored. He was fourth in batting average. He was ninth in on-base percentage, 13th in stolen bases and 19th in walks. He had an excellent defensive reputation. Over the course of a decade, he was either the best or the second-best baseball player in the world, behind Billy Hamilton.

2. "Delahanty was a five-tool player long before the term came into use," his SABR bio says, and there's one way his Baseball-Reference page looks more like Trout's than perhaps any other great player: The distribution of his black ink, which signifies when he led his league in something. Like Trout, Delahanty didn't just lead the league in power stats, or speed stats, but in almost everything at some point or another. He led the league in average, and in OBP, and in slugging percentage -- all in different years. He led the league in homers, doubles and triples, all in different years. He never led the league in walks, though he finished in the top six four times, and never in runs, though he finished third, fourth and fifth twice. He led in RBIs, in hits and over and over in OPS (not that he knew it at the time). In his final full season, he hit .376/.453/.590, all three leading the league, and then -- just 42 games later -- his career ends, and all the stats stop. And that's probably what he's most famous for.

3. In 1903, when he was 35 and coming off one of his best seasons, Delahanty died. It's one of baseball's most shocking deaths and enduring mysteries. He was on a train near Niagara Falls. He was drunk -- his personal life had been falling apart -- and then belligerent. He got kicked off the train. He walked out onto a bridge over the Niagara River. He got in a scuffle with a night watchman, escaped the watchman's grasp and went over the edge of the bridge and died. It's not really known what happened: Did he fall in his drunkenness or did he jump? Was he suicidal, as some circumstantial evidence suggests? What sort of tragedy was this? It's never been known. "His naked body (except for tie, shoes and socks) was found 20 miles downstream at the base of Horseshoe Falls -- the Canadian portion of Niagara Falls -- seven days later," the SABR bio concludes. He was, at the time, one of the five greatest baseball players who had ever lived.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: The playing time gap between Trout and Delahanty is considerably smaller than for most of these Hall of Famers. Delahanty only played about 50 percent more games than Trout has already, and his first four years were quite poor. Delahanty's best year would be Trout's sixth best.

Gary Carter, 70.1 WAR (69th)

How good Carter was:

1. It's incredible what catchers used to be asked to do, and Carter even more than most. In 1982, he started 151 games at catcher. Only one catcher since World War II has ever started more, and only two catchers in this decade have started more than 137 (and none more than 143). He took 650 of his team's 693 plate appearances at the position that year, and if you don't think that all took a toll on his stats and his career, just look at the splits: He hit .313/.391/.588 in the first half, .271/.370/.429 in the second. "I'm on that burnout pace," he admitted at the time, citing Johnny Bench as an example. "I feel it in the mornings. Sometimes, it takes me a half-hour to get out of bed. There are days when I can't walk down the stairs without stretching and popping my legs back into shape."

2. But the next year -- 1983, when he was 29 -- he had, arguably, the best defensive season in catching history, 27 runs better than average. Only seven catchers over the past century have even cracked 20. It marked the end of a remarkable run of eight years and more than 100 runs saved on defense.

From a Sports Illustrated profile at the time: "Backup Catcher Tim Blackwell says Carter 'frames the ball,' that is, catches it with such a smooth movement of the mitt that every close pitch appears to be a strike, a technique he learned from former Expo Coach Norm Sherry. He can glance at a scouting report and within five minutes conduct a team meeting on it. He's not merely competitive; he's aflame.... 'I like being called the best catcher in baseball. Nobody remembers Number 2.'"

3. His positive attitude was legendary. He talked to everybody -- batters, reporters, fans on the edges of the stands -- constantly. He estimated that he signed as many as 100,000 autographs a year. "Carter may be that rarest of humans -- a truly happy man," that SI profile said.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Very few catchers can stay at an All-Star level deep into their 30's, and Carter was no exception. He had 11 seasons as an above-average player, while Trout already has eight. Carter ranks 107th all time in MVP shares, which is very good. Trout already ranks 11th, and when he wins it this year he'll likely jump into the top five. Carter's career-high OPS+ was 146. Trout's career low is 168. Carter's best season, by WAR, would be Trout's sixth best.

Bobby Wallace, 70.3 WAR (67th)

How good Wallace was:

1. Wallace is the 21st Hall of Fame hitter Trout has passed this season, and it's a strong bet he's the least recognizable name of them all. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of him. Consider this: "There was one of the greatest ball players in the world, and the chances are that half the young fellows of today never heard of him." That was written by Honus Wagner, just six years after Wallace retired.

It seems fairly damning to his greatness than the young fellows of the day held him in low regard. But Wagner was writing about Wallace because he was naming him to his all-time team, as the shortstop (with Wagner presumably excluding himself from consideration). Which is pretty supportive of his greatness.

2. "He was such a perfect machine I reckon they just sort of considered Wallace as belonging at short and never thought about giving him a boost," Wagner reasoned about Wallace's lack of publicity. "He was so generally good as not to be noticed. Wallace was as sure a fielder and pegger to first as ever lived. He was never regarded as a heavy hitter but he was one of the surest men in a pinch that I ever have seen. To my mind Bobby Wallace was the best shortstop we ever had on making double plays and on coming in for slow-hit grounders. He had studied every batter so that he knew where they would hit certain pitches and he would be right on top of the ball. He was so perfect in this that a lot of folks thought him born under a lucky star. It wasn't luck at all. He had figured it out that way. Wallace could cover as much ground either to his right or left as anybody -- and probably more. I used to wish that I could do some of the tricks that Bobby did. Yes, I have taken into consideration his lack of hitting, and still I select him as the grand All-American shortstop of all time."

3. He wasn't a terrible hitter or anything. It's hard for us to know what to make of hitting stats from such a profoundly different era, but his OPS was better than league average and he was often in the top 10 in doubles or triples (and twice in slugging percentage). But his legacy is as a defender, not just a great one but an innovative one: He's generally credited with inventing the now-standard continuous motion of fielding and throwing. As Wallace described: "As more speed afoot was constantly demanded for big league ball, I noticed the many infield bounders which the runner beat to first only by the thinnest fractions of a second. I also noted that the old-time three-phase movement, fielding a ball, coming erect for a toss and throwing to first wouldn't do on certain hits with fast men ... it was plain that the stop and toss had to be combined into a continuous movement."

Fun detail: Wallace retired to become an umpire, but he didn't like it and returned to playing.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: It's hard to find any real way to put Mike Trout and Bobby Wallace on the same scale. Trout has eight times more home runs in his career than Wallace had. Wallace played in an era when making 60 errors qualified him as the league's best shortstop. Wallace played for a team that, after he left, went 20-134 the next season. It's all too different to truly compare. But his best season, by WAR, would be Mike Trout's sixth best.

Frankie Frisch, 70.4 WAR (66th)

How good Frisch was:

1. Frankie Frisch played 19 seasons in the majors and collected 2,880 hits. Ronald Acuna Jr. will pass Frisch's career strikeout total by the end of this season.

Obviously, it was a very different era. But even relative to his peers, by an index stat like strikeout-percentage-plus, Frisch is one of the 30 or so greatest contact hitters ever, and in an era when contact hitting was the skill people valued.

2. In 1927, as a second baseman, he was 37 runs better than average on defense, according to Baseball-Reference. We, of course, don't have the range of metrics to assess defense then that we do now. It's all very foggy. But by range factor -- which measures how many chances a player had per game, presumably due in large part to his own range -- Frisch reached nearly one more ground ball per game than the average second baseman. He set the all-time record for assists that year, a record that still stands today.

3. In "The Glory Of Their Times," an oral history of early-century baseball, the catcher and manager Bob O'Farrell says: "The greatest player I ever saw? Oh, I don't know, there were so many great ones. Guys like Paul Waner, Hornsby, Alex, Terry, Hubbell, Ruth, Vance, Mel Ott, Rixey, Roush. There were too many great ones to say any one is the greatest. Although I'll say this; the greatest player I ever saw in any one season was Frankie Frisch in 1927. That was his first year with the Cardinals, when I was managing him. He'd been traded to St. Louis for the man of the hour, Rogers Hornsby, and he was on the spot. Frank did everything that year. Really an amazing ballplayer."

How Trout is plausibly better, already: For all of Frisch's not striking out, he had very little power during an era when power was easy. Trout passed him in career homers by the time he was 23. He passed him in career walks this year. Frisch's best season, by WAR, would be Trout's fifth best.

Barry Larkin, 70.4 WAR (65th)

How good Larkin was:

1. Put him in New York, give him slightly better health, and he might be the most famous superstar of the era:

• Larkin: .295/.371/.444, 116 OPS+

• Derek Jeter: .310/.377/.440, 115 OPS+

Larkin was the better defender, the more effective baserunner, and even -- in a much smaller pool of at-bats -- the better postseason performer:

• Larkin: .338/.397/.465 (78 plate appearances)

• Jeter: .308/.374/.465 (734 PAs)

2. He ranks seventh all time in baserunning runs, with 80 more than average and not a single season in negative territory despite his playing until he was 40.

3. Larkin did everything right, nothing wrong. That was his thing. I once found that he's probably the best player in history who never led the league in any major offense category. As he put it, in a profile in Sports Illustrated in 1995, the year he won the NL MVP: "I consider myself an amoeba man. I'll assume any shape to help the team. If the team needs someone to lead by example, I do that. If it needs someone to steal, I do that. If it needs someone to bunt or move a runner from second to third, I do that."

To really appreciate how strong the sense of Larkin as a do-no-wrong guy was, though, follow me to the insane continuation of that section in the SI profile. After Larkin says he'll do anything the team needs him to do, his third-base coach, Ray Knight, chimes in with this anecdote:

"Knight recalls a recent game in which Larkin came to bat in the first inning with no outs and runners on first and second. As Gant waited on deck, Larkin glanced at Knight, who gave him the hit sign. Larkin bunted. Strike one. Knight put on the hit sign. Larkin bunted. Strike two. Knight flashed yet another hit sign. Larkin bunted. Strike three. On the dugout steps, Red manager Davey Johnson shook his head in disbelief. 'Barry knew we were having trouble scoring, and he wanted to get runners in scoring position for Ron,' says Knight. 'The point is, Barry's thoughts are pure.'"

Just think of how powerful the experience of watching Larkin, being on the same team as Larkin, must have been if that anecdote can be offered as a positive. Just total faith in Larkin. That's what it was like watching him in the 1990s.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: During the decade Larkin was at his offensive peak -- from 1989 to 1998 -- he only averaged 123 games per season, thanks to some poorly timed injuries and the 1994 strike. All those missed games cost him a dozen or so WAR that would have held Trout off for another season. His best season, by WAR, would be Trout's seventh best.

Ron Santo, 70.5 WAR (64th)

How good Santo was:

1. When he was a high school senior, Santo says, the Cubs' head scout told him "there's no way you're ever going to be a third baseman in the major leagues, son." They drafted him as a catcher. But Santo improved from not very good at the position, in his early 20's, to extremely good. He won five Gold Gloves.

2. Here's another story from when he was young: In 1959, when he went to rookie camp, Rogers Hornsby was the Cubs' hitting instructor. "At the conclusion of the three-week camp, Hornsby assembled the prospects in the bleachers. He went down the line, critiquing each player: 'You might as well go home'; 'You won't get by A ball'; 'Forget A ball, you won't get past C ball.' He got to Santo and said, 'You can hit in the big leagues right now.'"

A year later, Santo was a league-average hitter as a 20-year-old rookie. In the deadest era of offense of the past century, he would hit 30 homers four straight years, and lead the league in walks four times, winning Gold Gloves the whole time. From ages 24 to 27 he produced 35 WAR, the eighth-most ever across those ages, behind seven pantheon names.

3. For a couple of decades, Santo was arguably the best eligible player not in the Hall of Fame. Various reasons were posited for the snub: Third basemen have historically been overlooked by voters, a lot of his value came from walks, which were also historically overlooked, he played for mostly mediocre teams, and he had irritated too many writers and peers with his habit of celebrating victories with a leaping heel-click (which was popular in Chicago, less so elsewhere). "Santo was never quite sure where to direct his disappointment, but he knew that somebody had screwed him out of his spot in baseball's Hall of Fame," Phil Rogers eulogized in 2010. It was a shame, because it was never a given that Santo would live long enough for voters to get it right: He'd been battling Type 1 diabetes for most of his life, had already outlived his life expectancy by many decades, had lost both legs to the disease, and had helped raise tens of millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He died in 2010, and was inducted in 2012.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: In 1964, Ron Santo was the National League's second-best hitter. He played an important defensive position, and he was better than average at it. You put that together and it's 8.9 WAR, a titanic season, an MVP season most years, better than any number of Hall of Famers have ever done. That is Trout's average season so far: 8.8 WAR, an average that will go up as he adds to his total this year. Every year he's the best hitter in his league, at an important defensive position, which he plays better than average (while also adding baserunning value). Which is just all to say the answer to this question isn't about Santo -- it's that Trout more or less matches the typical Hall of Famer's best year every year. Santo's best season, by WAR, would be Trout's fourth best.

Alan Trammell, 70.7 WAR (63rd)

How good Trammell was:

1. There are five components to Baseball Reference's WAR model: Hitting runs, fielding runs, baserunning runs, double-play runs (the ability to avoid double plays) and positional runs (an adjustment for the difficulty of the position the player plays). Of the 50 Hall of Famers who have debuted since 1955, only four had positive values for all five of those categories: Larkin, Ryne Sandberg, Ken Griffey Jr. and Trammell.

2. Trammell's Hall of Fame candidacy always seemed stronger than writers gave credit for -- he was elected by the veterans committee -- but he seems to be a victim of his particular peers. In the 1980s, he was the second-best offensive shortstop, slightly behind Cal Ripken and miles, miles ahead of No. 3. (But as Gary Carter once said: Nobody remembers No. 2.) He was arguably the second-best defensive shortstop too (or maybe third), but behind Ozzie Smith -- the greatest defensive shortstop of all time. He did win three Silver Slugger awards and four Gold Gloves, but he never started an All-Star Game.

3. Trammell "does have one fault," Steve Wulf wrote in 1983. "He's a klutz. 'He is the world's worst eater,' says First Baseman Enos Cabell. 'You better sit on his left side or else he'll spill on you.' Says Third Baseman Tom Brookens, 'Alan has to Scotchgard all his pants.' Says Castillo, 'His hands are like Mel Tillis' speech: Mel stutters when he talks, but he sings perfectly. If it's not a baseball, Alan drops it.'"

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Trout's on-base percentage is higher than Trammell's slugging percentage. Trammell's best season, by WAR, would be Trout's sixth best.

Johnny Mize, 70.9 WAR (62nd)

How good Mize was:

1. Mize was so good. Over a nine-year stretch, these are Mize's MVP finishes: 10th, 12th, 2nd, 2nd, 9th, 5th, 16th, 3rd, 17th. Except, right in the middle of that run, he enlisted in the Navy and missed three seasons to serve during WWII. It's no stretch at all to assume he lost three MVP-level seasons. What's absolutely wild is that Hall of Fame voters didn't seem to care; he never topped 50 percent of the vote and had to be inducted by the veterans committee almost 30 years after he retired, presumably because his career home run and RBI totals weren't quite as high as other Hall of Fame first baseman. Wild.

2. Since 1901, Mize is 16th all time in OPS and 13th all time in OPS+. He was a better hitter than Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Hank Greenberg and Edgar Martinez. He had a masterful blend of power (he was large, for the time, and often swung a huge bat) and bat control. Adjusted for era, he's seventh all time in isolated power, and of the six batters ahead of him, only Ted Williams had a lower strikeout rate. His defensive reputation at first base was enough to earn him the nickname "The Big Cat."

3. According to his obituary in The New York Times, he also "took special pleasure in laying a perfect bunt down the third-base line." Data aren't complete for his career, but sure enough, he got at least seven down for hits.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Because Mize missed those three years for the war, and spent the final four years of his career as a part-timer on great Yankees teams, he really only had 10 full seasons. They were incredible seasons, among the greatest offensive seasons ever. But Trout is still a better hitter: Mize is 13th all time in OPS+, but Trout is fifth. His best season, by WAR, would be Trout's sixth best.

Who's next: Harry Heilmann, though at Trout's regular pace it could take a few weeks to get there.

Can athletics help beat cancer? John Shepherd meets exercise physiologist Tom Cowan to find out

Aged 49, Jason Carty (pictured) came back from the World Masters Indoor Championships in Torun with a gold in the M45 60m in a British record of 7.01. He ran a PB to show that he was in prime condition. Yet only a few years earlier he had cancer and had half his lower lobe removed.

There are a number of other athletes of all ages who have suffered from cancer, such as Jamaican 400m runner Novlene Williams-Mills, who had breast cancer, plus sportsmen and sportswomen across a spectrum of other sports, such as tennis player Martina Navratilova – and here we look at the topic in depth.

Athletics Weekly: Is exercise useful/prescribed for cancer sufferers?

Tom Cowan: A small survey by Macmillan Cancer Support and YouGov in 2012 found only 23% of cancer patients surveyed had been advised by their oncologist about the importance of being physically active during or after cancer treatment. There is a growing body of evidence of the physiological and psychological benefits of exercise both during treatment and post-treatment.

A research review from 2017 suggested that following cancer diagnosis, superior levels of exercise were associated with a 28-44% reduced risk of cancer-specific mortality, 21-35% lower risk of cancer recurrence and a 25-48% decreased risk of all-cause mortality.

The benefits of exercise for cancer patients also include managing side-effects of treatment, such as reducing cancer-related fatigue, improving body composition by maintaining muscle mass through performing strength training, maintaining a healthy weight and improving sleep.

Exercise also improves metabolic health and emerging evidence suggests that it may target the specific Warburg-type highly glycolytic metabolism of tumour cells and may play a part in controlling tumour growth by reducing insulin-like growth factors (IGF) and inflammatory markers.

Moderate levels of exercise can also optimise immune function, which is of particular importance for cancer patients undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy, which can compromise their immune system.

It is also thought that exercise may improve the efficacy of cancer treatments such as chemotherapy drugs, through a possible improvement in their transport to cancer cells.

An improved level of fitness is associated with a reduced length of hospital stay and shorter recovery time. Exercise is also important in terms of improving cardiovascular health and fitness of cancer patients, as some cancer treatments can cause cardiotoxicity, having negative implications on the patient’s cardiovascular function. In fact in men with prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death.

Performing strength training and some weight-bearing exercise can help to improve bone mineral density and bone strength, which may be reduced by hormone therapy. Regularly performing flexibility exercises can help patients to quickly regain their range of motion after surgery.

There are also a multitude of psychological benefits, including a reduced risk of depression, improved quality of life and the feeling of having something that is within the patient’s control when the rest of their course of treatment is likely to be managed by their oncologist.

AW: Are certain cancers known to respond to exercise more than others?

TC: The majority of cancer research and exercise to date has focused on breast cancer and as a result it is in this population that some of the benefits of exercise on cancer are best evidenced. Colorectal and prostate cancer have also been widely studied and there is growing evidence of the benefits of exercise across a range of different cancer types. Further research is required but more and more studies continue to emerge in the field.

JASON CARTY

Jason Carty had lung cancer but has run faster than ever at 49. He’s world masters champion at 60m and 100m.

“I had my left lower lobe taken out as I had lung cancer and it kind of changed everything, especially my running, and my life had to change dramatically. I was diagnosed in April 2016 and by July they whipped me in and took the lower lobe out.

“I trained six weeks later (after the operation – Ed), I was advised not to but for me I thought it would be more therapeutic than sitting inside and doing nothing and it seemed to work in the end.”

AW: Which forms of exercise are recommended and how can a patient monitor their reaction to exercise?

TC: It is generally recommended that cancer patients try to adhere to the World Health Organisation guidelines for exercise, which is a target of at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week. It is also recommended that cancer patients perform two to three strength training sessions per week as well as keeping up with their flexibility.

It’s crucial that the volume and intensity of training are adapted for each individual according to their current health and fitness status, cancer treatment and side effects.

For example, patients undergoing chemotherapy are likely to have fluctuating levels of fatigue dependent on which stage they are at within their chemotherapy cycle and the exercise programme should reflect this, with lower intensity and volume on days when fatigue is high and relatively more workload on days when fatigue is lower and energy levels are higher. If a patient is unable to meet the 150-minute target, then it is recommended for them to be as physically active as possible, performing exercise little and often and avoiding inactivity.

AW: What effects do anti-cancer drugs/treatments have?

TC: Chemotherapy is the use of chemical agents that kill cells that are in the process of dividing. Another common form of cancer treatment is hormone therapy, which works to try to keep hormone-sensitive cancers, such as some breast, prostate and ovarian cancers under control by reducing the level of hormones in the body or by blocking the hormones which make cancer cells grow and divide.

Anti-angiogenesis drugs work by preventing tumours from creating their own blood vessels, sometimes through blocking a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). This limits tumour growth, restricting it to a size of about 1-2mm. PARP inhibitors are another form of cancer treatment that has typically been used in cancer patients with faulty BRCA genes. PARP inhibitors stop the PARP protein from repairing damage within a cancer cell, which means that the cancer cell dies.

AW: What about steroidal treatments?

TC: Rather than anabolic steroids, which are known to have performance enhancing capabilities, corticosteroids are usually used to treat cancer and help with the side-effects of treatment, such as reducing sickness. This may make patients feel a bit better in the days following chemotherapy, which may lead to an improvement in exercise performance. However, side effects of steroids include oedema, a build up of fluid leading to swelling of the hands and feet, and increased appetite, which may lead to overeating and weight gain. Possible but less common side effects of steroid treatment include muscle wasting and bone thinning, which both impact negatively on exercise performance.

AW: What about diet, can this off-set cancer symptoms and assist cure?

TC: Many nutritional strategies for cancer patients are novel and without the backing of large randomised controlled trials but what we do know is that all cancer patients should optimise their weight and body composition during and after treatment, since these factors have an effect on the patient’s outcome.

Muscle mass maintenance and development can be encouraged through adequate protein consumption during the day and around exercise and training. Keeping to a healthy body weight and not becoming overweight/obese has been shown to be important, for example, for prostate cancer patients, who may have a reduced risk of suffering from incontinence after a prostatectomy if they are of a healthy weight. There is also good evidence that being overweight increases the risk of developing aggressive or advanced prostate cancer.

Being a healthy weight has also been suggested to improve the effectiveness of some cancer treatments, such as hormone therapy. However, the need to decrease body fat varies by cancer type. Oesophageal, head, neck and gastric cancer patients may
be underweight and may lose more weight during treatment so dietary focus for these patients may need to be placed around increasing weight.

Patients should aim to follow a healthy diet but should be aware that it may be necessary to adapt their diet due to some of the side-effects of treatment that can include changes in taste and diarrhoea. Certain dietary habits can place individuals at an increased risk of developing certain forms of cancer, such as insufficient fibre intake as well as consuming too much red and processed meat, with both linked to an increased risk in developing bowel cancer.

It is also suggested beneficial for patients undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy to limit their intake of antioxidants, as they can reduce the effectiveness of the treatments. There are some emerging studies suggesting that intermittent fasting could decrease cancer growth rates.