The Miami Dolphins are having trade talks with other NFL teams about star cornerback Jalen Ramsey, general manager Chris Grier confirmed Tuesday.

Grier said that after discussions between the team and Ramsey, "we decided it was probably in the best interest for all parties to move forward."

Grier added that Ramsey did not ask for a trade.

Grier was also asked about the status of Tyreek Hill and again said the team was not trying to trade the star wide receiver.

"That is not anything that we're pursuing, [but] like I said, who knows, if someone wants to come and give me two first-round picks, then we'd consider it. But as of right now, it's not something we're considering."

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel was on the team bus Saturday morning as it pulled in front of Neyland Stadium for the annual spring game. It was the end of a tumultuous, and potentially career-defining, week.

The Volunteers had just split with their star quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, after an attempted renegotiation of Iamaleava's compensation for the 2025 season fell through.

Heupel and Iamaleava had always had a strong relationship, but when the QB didn't report to practice Friday, there was little choice. "We're moving on as a program without him," Heupel would say later.

After all, how can you run a college team when your leader is holding out?

"There's nobody bigger than the 'Power T,'" Heupel said.

A great line. And a true one that would ring out as a rallying cry to NIL-weary coaches across the country: "If they want to play holdout, they might as well play get out," Miami coach Mario Cristobal echoed.

Still, this is the SEC. This is major college football with all the expectations and pressure. This is a coaching profession where careers can turn on a single game, let alone season. "Do it the right way" tends to work only if you win.

As Heupel was about to step off the bus to face a crowd of Volunteers fans, his team was, at least on paper, less of a contender than two days prior. The reaction could have gone in any direction.

He was greeted with roaring cheers.

Iamaleava's legacy as a quarterback remains unknown, a work in progress for the 20-year-old with three years of collegiate eligibility remaining.

In terms of his impact on the early days of the NIL era in college football though, he is a seminal figure, somehow representing both ends of the pendulum swing of player empowerment.

In the spring of 2022, Iamaleava, then just a high school junior, agreed to a four-year deal worth approximately $8 million with Tennessee's NIL collective, Spyre Sports Group. It included a $350,000 up-front payment, per reporting by the Athletic, with money paid out during his senior season at Warren High School in California.

It was a bold, and strategically smart, play by Tennessee. While other schools were wading cautiously into NIL and the NCAA was feverishly trying to set up so-called "guardrails," the Vols smartly saw where things were headed. When the NCAA eventually challenged the deal, the state's attorney general stepped in and won an injunction.

Now, however, the player who was once cheered and who was paid millions before becoming the full-time starter is the poster child for NIL backlash. Rather than play out the final season of his deal -- which would pay him about $2.2 million -- Iamaleava reportedly wanted some $4 million that was commensurate with what other quarterbacks who transferred this year were getting.

Asking for more was Iamaleava's right, but with rights comes risk. As with any negotiation, you can push too far.

Iamaleava is a promising and tough player, but 11 of his 19 touchdown passes last season came against lesser competition. He has great potential, but something didn't sit right in Knoxville with how the process has played out.

This felt obnoxious.

"It's unfortunate, just the situation and where we're at with Nico," Heupel said. "I want to thank him for everything that he's done since he's gotten here ... a great appreciation for that side of it."

That said, if being the starter and cornerstone at Tennessee -- with its rich history, its massive fan base, its QB-developing head coach, its SEC spotlight and years of familiarity -- isn't enough without a few more bucks, then so be it.

It can't all be about money, even these days.

"This program's been around for a long time," Heupel said. "A lot of great coaches, a lot of great players that came before, laid the cornerstone pieces, the legacy, the tradition that is Tennessee football. It's going to be around a long time after I'm done and after they're gone."

Whatever games Tennessee might lose without Iamaleava, it gained in dignity by drawing a line in the sand. That's what the fans were rightfully cheering; a boomerang that saw the school claw back some power.

Just as Iamaleava had the right under current rules to walk away if his demands weren't meant, so too could the Volunteers. If it's all business, then let it be all about business.

Iamaleava will be fine, mind you. He has already made more money than most Americans ever will, and he can't legally drink yet. And this isn't the first of these kinds of disputes, just the first that was so public and messy.

Iamaleava might or might not get $4 million next season. Negotiations were poorly managed, costing the player leverage and reputation. The market for a guy with questionable commitment, especially during the late transfer cycle, could be limited, what with big-time schools mostly set at QB.

He will still get plenty though. Would he have developed better long term under Heupel playing for the Vols? Well, Iamaleava didn't think it was worth finding out.

Again, his career, his choice. It's all fair game.

As for Tennessee, it might not even take a step back this season. Having a QB focused on his next deal rarely works in the first place. This might even be a boost for team chemistry.

Long term, it's still Tennessee. It's still Rocky Top. Heupel still has the No. 1 quarterback recruit in the Class of 2026 -- Faizon Brandon of North Carolina -- committed.

Most importantly, the Vols served a very public reminder that spending cash doesn't assure anything. Money matters, but it has to be on the right guys -- just as it is in the NFL or NBA. Think of how some of those big-budget Texas A&M recruiting classes worked out.

Ohio State is believed to have had the largest NIL budget last season. If it had gone to players who cared only about their deals and not each other, the Buckeyes would have collapsed after the loss to Michigan. Instead they got stronger.

What Iamaleava, once the poster child for players getting their value when he was still a recruit, has become is proof that a team can have values, too.

A program has to stand for something.

Tennessee showed it does, and that is why Heupel, at the end of a difficult week, found Tennessee fans standing for something as well.

To cheer.

Naismith Hall of Famer Joe Dumars is finalizing a deal to become the new president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.

Dumars -- a two-time NBA champion as a player and a title-winning executive with the Detroit Pistons -- returns to his home state of Louisiana and replaces David Griffin as the head of basketball operations for the Pelicans.

Dumars served as the chief strategy officer of the Sacramento Kings from 2019-22 and has been the NBA league office's executive vice president of basketball operations since 2022.

Dumars ran the Pistons from 2000-14, winning the executive of the year award in 2003 and building the 2004 championship team. He made a series of moves that propelled the Pistons to seven straight seasons of 50 wins or more from 2001-02 to 2007-08 -- signing Chauncey Billups, trading for Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace and Rip Hamilton, and drafting Tayshaun Prince.

The Pistons have 14 50-win seasons in franchise history -- half of them coming under Dumars' leadership.

Drafted by the Pistons in 1985, Dumars spent his entire 14-year playing career as a shooting guard and defensive stopper with the franchise, winning NBA titles with the "Bad Boys" in 1989 and 1990.

In New Orleans, Dumars is expected to soon immerse himself with the current basketball staff, led by well-regarded general manager Bryson Graham, and head coach Willie Green. In terms of the Pelicans' roster, the franchise will assuredly have candid conversations with star forward Zion Williamson on his direction with the team.

Williamson has played in just 45% of his possible games with the Pelicans since being the No. 1 overall pick in 2019 -- and has never played in the playoffs after he suffered injuries prior to both of the team's postseason appearances in 2022 and 2024.

The Pelicans finished this season at 21-61 -- the fourth-worst record in the league, ahead of only the Utah Jazz (17-65), Washington Wizards (18-64) and Charlotte Hornets (19-63).

Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard will miss the start of the NBA playoffs because of a blood clot in his right calf, sources told ESPN.

The Bucks play Game 1 of their first-round series Saturday against the Indiana Pacers.

Doctors examining Lillard, who has been sidelined since March 18, believe the veteran guard is making significant progress with the blood clot shrinking in the calf, sources said. Lillard has yet to be cleared to resume full basketball activities.

The Bucks announced Tuesday that Lillard had made "significant improvement on his deep vein thrombosis" and that the nine-time All-Star will increase his on-court activity. The team did not offer a clear timetable for Lillard's return.

"Damian's most recent weekly scan shows that his injury has significantly improved which will enable him to move ahead safely with increased basketball activity," Bucks general manager Jon Horst said in a statement. "Damian's health remains our No. 1 priority. We have followed strict protocols and will continue to do so. We are pleased with the positive news about Damian's progress."

The Bucks announced last month that Lillard, 34, would be sidelined indefinitely. The team said at the time that Lillard had been using a blood-thinning medication to stabilize the clot, with Horst adding that the Bucks would "support him as he moves through this weekly process of strict criteria to ensure that it is safe for him to return to play."

Bucks coach Doc Rivers said earlier this month that he was optimistic Lillard would return at some point, but acknowledged that the team also was prepared for the nine-time All-Star to miss the rest of the season.

"There's no guarantee we are going to have him," Rivers said on April 3. "We get him back, we know how to play. But we don't know how to play in the long term without him. ... So we got work to do."

Lillard was averaging 24.9 points and 7.1 assists before being sidelined for Milwaukee's final 14 games of the regular season. The Bucks went 10-4 in those contests and ended the season on an eight-game winning streak.

ESPN's Tim Bontemps contributed to this report.

DALLAS -- Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison doubled down on his mantra of "defense wins championships," repeatedly using that cliché as an explanation for his decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Lakers, a shocking blockbuster deal that outraged the Dallas fan base and has prompted frequent chants for Harrison's firing.

Harrison, along with new Mavs CEO Rick Welts, held an hour-long session Tuesday morning with a select group of Dallas-based media in which the trade of Doncic, 26, for a package headlined by 32-year-old perennial All-Star power forward Anthony Davis dominated the discussion.

"There's no regrets on the trade," said Harrison, whose only other media availability since the trade was a brief pregame session the following day in Cleveland. "Part of my job is to do the best thing for the Mavericks, not only today, but also in the future, and some of the decisions I'm going to make are going to be unpopular. That's my job and I have to stand by it."

Harrison made the deal only months after Doncic led Dallas to the NBA Finals following a series of trades to construct a contender around the franchise player. Harrison referred to those deals -- including trades for Kyrie Irving, Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington -- when asked about Dallas' fans widespread desire for him to be fired.

"Well, the beauty of Dallas is it is a passionate fan base," Harrison said. "For us to reach our goals, we need that fan base. And to be honest with you, every trade I've made since I've been here has not been regarded as a good trade, and so sometimes it takes time. When I traded for Kyrie, it was met with a lot of skepticism and it was graded as a terrible trade and you didn't see it right away, but eventually everyone agreed that that was a great trade. When I traded for [Gafford] and [Washington] again, it was like, 'Oh, he gave up way too much. These guys aren't going to help us.' Now that trade, you saw the evidence a lot sooner. So I think a lot of times trades take a little bit of time.

"But our philosophy, like I said, going forward is defense wins championships and we're built on defense. And this trade cements us for that."

Did Harrison not believe that the core of last season's Finals team, with Doncic as the centerpiece, could contend for a title?

"I'll say this again: Defense wins championships," Harrison said.

The Mavs had the NBA's top-ranked defense for the final 20 games of last season. The Boston Celtics eliminated the Mavs in five games in the Finals, but defense wasn't Dallas' biggest problem in that series. The Mavs allowed 109.2 points per 100 possessions in the Finals, a defensive rating that would have ranked second in the league last regular season.

Harrison gave up control of the Mavs' first-round picks from 2027 through 2030 while making that series of successful trades, as well as the sign-and-trade deal for forward Grant Williams that didn't work out well. He has said that he believes he built a team with a "three- to four-year timeframe" to contend with titles, although injuries ruined the Mavs' hopes this season.

"We believe in the move we made," Harrison said when asked how the logic of a timeframe that ends as the team enters a stretch when it doesn't control its first-round picks is in the franchise's long-term best interests. "You obviously don't, and that's fine. You're entitled to your opinions, but we're excited. ... I think once we win, then that will change your mind."

Asked if he envisions himself continuing as the Mavs' GM beyond the timeframe of three to four years, Harrison stated that he considers Dallas home and said, "I have three years left of my contract. I see myself finishing it out."

"I think once we win, then that will change your mind."

Mavericks GM Nico Harrison on those skeptical of Luka Doncic trade

Harrison said he hoped that the "vitriol would've subsided" due to the performance of the "championship-caliber team" that he constructed with Davis and All-Star guard Irving as the centerpiece. However, a series of injuries have derailed Dallas' season, as the Mavs limped to a 39-43 record to claim the Western Conference's final play-in berth.

The most significant of those injuries was a torn ACL suffered by Irving that will sideline him for an extended stretch to start next season. Davis, who was sidelined with an abdominal injury, suffered a related left adductor strain during his Mavericks debut on Feb. 8 and was sidelined for the next six weeks.

That 116-105 home win over the Houston Rockets -- when fans held a large protest outside the American Airlines Center pregame -- was the only time that Irving and Davis have played together for the Mavs. Davis had 26 points, 16 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 blocks in 31 minutes before suffering his injury.

"That's a championship-caliber team, and you guys were able to see it for two and a half quarters," Harrison said. "Unfortunately, it's a small sample size, but that is fairly a dominant defensive team. And as you look for us going forward, our philosophy is going to change. We're a team that's built on defense, we're built on versatility and depth. I think that's important going forward and that's going to be the blueprint to our success."

Mavs minority owner Mark Cuban, who lost control of basketball operations when he sold the majority share of the franchise to the Adelson and Dumont families last season, is among many who have criticized Harrison for not maximizing the return on a trade for a generational talent still approaching his prime.

Davis headlined a package from the Lakers that also included promising wing Max Christie and a 2029 first-round pick. Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka used the secretive nature of the discussions, which Harrison deemed necessary in part to prevent Doncic and his agent Bill Duffy from having any influence, as leverage in the trade talks.

"We targeted AD with our philosophy of defense wins championships," Harrison said. "We wanted a two-way player to lead our team and that was Anthony Davis. And so everybody's going to have their critics and I'm not sure what Mark said, but that's a better question left for him. But we got what we wanted."

Cuban was not consulted in the decision to trade Doncic, who has said that he planned to sign a five-year, $345 million supermax extension this summer to stay in Dallas long term. Neither was Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki, who has also publicly criticized the deal.

"First of all, nobody really knew about this trade," Harrison said. "It was very hush-hush, but you can't look for advice from people who aren't in the building at a constant basis. They're not going to understand what the team is going through day in and day out."

Variations of Doncic's No. 77 jerseys, including editions from the Mavs, Lakers and the Slovenian national team, continue to far outnumber all other jerseys combined during Dallas' home games.

That was especially true when Doncic made his return with the Lakers on April 9, when tears flowed down his face during a pregame tribute video before he scorched the Mavs for 45 points during Los Angeles' 112-97 win. That night was bookended by standing ovations for Doncic from the sellout crowd, which frequently chanted "Fire Nico!" throughout the game.

Welts, however, cited a season-ticket renewal rate between 75% and 80% as evidence that the fan base remains enthusiastic about the Mavs.

"That doesn't mean that there's a segment of our fan base that doesn't feel alienated right now, and I think that we hear 'em," Welts said. "And it's on us to win back that trust. I'm very confident that's exactly what we're going to do by the way we conduct ourselves on and off the court every day going forward.

"One thing that's been amazing for me, I think in my 47 years [in the NBA], I've never seen a more passionate fan base than this for any team in any sport. In my kind of glass half full way of looking at the world, I think that's a real positive, because I do think that gives us a wonderful chance to win back those fans who aren't sure about the Mavericks right now. But we're going to make that happen."

March 2, 1963, lives in NBA history as the day Wilt Chamberlain dropped 100 points. On March 2, 2025, another statistical nugget joined the Big Dipper's.

The matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs ended 146-132, the 3,159th unique final score in NBA history and 14th this season. Or, in other words, a "scorigami."

The NBA's recent increase in scoring has opened the door for point totals never seen in the league's near-80-year history. Hakob Chalikyan wanted to make sure those factoids didn't go unnoticed.

Inspired by the NFL scorigami account, Chalikyan launched the NBA version in September. The 70,000-plus scores in NBA history are stored on the site he developed, scorigaminba.com. It also includes totals from the Basketball Association of America, a league that existed from 1946 to 1949 before merging with the National Basketball League to become the NBA.

The X account, NBA_Scorigami, posts scores daily, alongside how many times a specific result has happened and the last time it occurred. The Boston Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz are among the franchises that follow the account.

Chalikyan, 25, said it's easier to achieve a never-before-seen final score in the NBA compared to the NFL (which has 1,091). That led him to wonder whether the NBA version would be popular. More than 35,000 followers later, it's clear fans of quirky score outcomes aren't picky.

"It's still pretty fun because you could see ... different eras have different types of scores," Chalikyan told ESPN. "So now in the era we're in, scores are getting so high where you're just going to see scores that never happened before. I think that's still pretty fun, and I think that's what people like."

The origins of scorigami date back to the mid-2010s. As part of a series called "Chart Party," Jon Bois of SB Nation's Secret Base, introduced the term in September 2014, initially spelling it "scoragami."

"Scoragami is a word I just invented, and it refers to the act, and art, of producing a final score in a football game that has never happened before," Bois wrote.

Bois, who didn't respond to requests for an interview, told ESPN's Mina Kimes in a 2021 SportsCenter feature that after writing the post, people slowly began pointing out unusual scores to him on social media.

Two years after the written piece, he brought it to video form, analyzing a chart of NFL scores while pointing out the most interesting ones. Dave Mattingly then created a Twitter page in 2017 equipped with a bot to track all of the scores.

"I took literally a weekend, built the algorithm, learned the Twitter behind the scenes [of] what I would need to do in order to post the tweets," he told Kimes. "And I just put it out there and then figured that no one would ever see it."

Eight years later, the account boasts nearly 500,000 followers, establishing a corner of the internet for rooting for unique scores during the NFL season. An accompanying website -- developed by Andrew Merriman -- includes a chart of every score in NFL history. The X account and website are separate from each other and Bois.

Merriman and Mattingly have had a few conversations, and Mattingly helped Merriman with bits of his code. Merriman said he has never spoken with Bois but that he wouldn't have made the website without Bois' original video.

"It is really cool to get a new unique score in any sport," Merriman told ESPN. "So the NBA version is just as interesting as anything else."

Chalikyan knew about NFL scorigami and always wondered why an NBA version didn't exist. Though other accounts had attempted to put one together, Chalikyan thought he'd be the person to do it properly.

He began that process roughly three years ago, gathering and storing data on every game in NBA history. But he said he wasn't skilled enough to make a website and publish it.

That led to scorigami hitting the shelf until further notice.

"I sort of went away from it for a few years," Chalikyan said. "But this past summer before the season started, I was like, 'Hey, I'm pretty good with this type of technology now, so I could probably just go back and take that data and make the website,' but then I realized I had lost all the data."

Chalikyan had to start from scratch.

He wrote code and instructed it to visit NBA.com, using the website's API -- an application programming interface, which is "a set of rules or protocols that enables software applications to communicate with each other to exchange data, features and functionality," according to IBM -- to gather the data.

It went year by year, team by team and pulled scores that were then stored in a private database. Chalikyan called it a "pretty automated" process that took three days.

Once he had the data, he transitioned to building the website.

The X account soon followed, though another issue arose -- someone beat Chalikyan to it.

"I actually made an account, and then I saw that somebody else had made an account maybe like two, three weeks prior to that," he said. "And they had about 18,000 followers, and I was like, 'What?'"

Ethan Peterson had a similar vision. Inspired by the NFL account, he, too, decided to create an NBA version. He originally hoped to start it manually before figuring out how to automate the account, which he said he doesn't have the necessary experience for.

Peterson posted on Sept. 16, 2024, that the NBA scorigami X account was being launched. Ten days later, Chalikyan reached out, explaining that he had the same idea and a project to show.

"I'd gotten a DM from Hakob, saying that he also created one, and he was wanting to collaborate," Peterson told ESPN. "And I was like, 'Hey, yeah, that sounds great. With my announcement that I was going to run this account, it'd be awesome if we could get your bot that you created to help post on this account.'"

When Chalikyan approached him, Peterson said he thought, "Well, I can help him show off this code that he created, because this account already has so many followers."

Welcome to NBA Scorigami!

This account will be dedicated to tracking new scoring combinations in NBA history, regular season and playoffs.

There have been 3,004 unique scores in NBA history, 27 of which came in the 2023-24 season! pic.twitter.com/rpb8Bx2tHm

NBA Scorigami (@NBA_Scorigami_) September 16, 2024

Chalikyan has what Peterson said is "the back end of it all" -- the coding that's necessary for the database and automated posting. X has its own API, which Chalikyan uses so that within five minutes of a game ending, the bot automatically posts the result.

"The database that I have ... [the bot] goes to that. It checks everything like how many times has a score happened and based on that it tweets whether it's happened before, how many times it's happened," he said.

Mistakes happen with this type of process, such as when the bot posted the score of a Rising Stars game during this season's All-Star Weekend. "That tripped me out, but we got that fixed," Chalikyan said.

For that reason, Chalikyan and Peterson double check the scores and fix them manually if needed. The bot, database and website are fully in sync, creating a system that updates daily.

At first glance, NBA scorigami's website can be an overwhelming collection of data. Scattered dots angled with colors ranging from bright red to ice blue dominate the page. On the top left, users can filter year by year and examine how scoring has changed.

Though identifying the phenomenon by era is difficult, Chalikyan has noticed a trend when it comes to the number of scorigamis in a season.

"It's sort of weird there's this middle point where scoring was also high," he said. "I see that sometimes we get [a] scorigami and a lot of the higher scores happened, once or twice before in 1980, by a really high-pace offense or something. ... But it seems like a lot of the scorigamis this year are definitely because the offenses are becoming so good and scoring so much more."

Pace is the key word here. It's an estimate of possessions per 48 minutes, according to Basketball Reference. Simply put, more possessions played means more points scored. Some of the highest unique scores can be directly attributed to pace.

Ten of the highest pace averages per season occurred before the 1986-87 season -- the 1973-74 season takes the top spot at 107.8. The closest season this century is the 2019-20 campaign at 100.3, good enough for 16th on the list.

Only one of the five NBA scorigamis that included a team recording at least 170 points occurred this century -- a 176-175 Sacramento Kings victory over the LA Clippers in 2023. The Indiana Pacers came close to that 170 figure, defeating the Washington Wizards 162-109 last month for another scorigami.

While pace trends don't directly correlate to new unique scores happening, they give teams a larger possibility space in which they can happen. On March 30, two separate games ended in a new final score, the first time that has occurred since April 14, 2024.

First multi-scorigami night since April 14th 2024. pic.twitter.com/FJioYcNxln

NBA Scorigami (@NBA_Scorigami_) March 31, 2025

Scorigamis simply come in all forms and figures.

The highest in league history is a triple-overtime matchup in 1983 between the Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets that ended 186-184. The lowest took place in 1950 when the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18.

Scorigamis add an extra layer to what might initially be interpreted as a mundane final score, and at first glance, they might be difficult to identify. But Chalikyan's work has provided a way for such scores to be found -- a new wrinkle in the NBA's history.

Just check March 2, 1963.

The final score of Wilt's 100-point game? 169-147. A scorigami.

Los Angeles Dodgers legend Manny Mota is alert, resting and responding to medical treatment at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a stroke Monday night, the team confirmed on social media.

"Dad never lost consciousness during the incident and is currently doing well," team broadcaster José Mota, a former player, told ESPN Deportes.

Manny Mota, 87, has spent the past 56 years with the Dodgers as a player, coach, broadcaster and, most recently, as part of the veterans group that serves as a liaison between the club and the community.

Mota played with the Dodgers for the final 13 years of a two-decade career that began in 1962 with the San Francisco Giants. He then spent the next 35 years as a coach, which is a record for the Los Angeles franchise.

Mota hit .304 for this career and was named to the 1973 All-Star Game. His 150 pinch hits stood as the major league record for two decades until Lenny Harris broke it in 1999. In his 13 seasons with the Dodgers, Mota hit .315 in 1,923 at-bats, mostly as a pinch hitter.

In the Dominican League, Mota is the all-time leader with a .333 batting average. He also won several championships as manager of the Tigres del Licey, who were previously the Dodgers' sole partner.

CHICAGO -- At 27, Luis Robert Jr. is already a relic of sorts, the last remaining player from the White Sox's all-too-brief era of contention.

On the south side of Chicago, that era seems like a very long time ago. That's how a pair of 100-loss seasons, including last year's record-setting 121-loss campaign, can warp a baseball fan's perception of time. In fact, it was only 3 years ago when, on Oct. 12, 2021, Chicago was eliminated by the Houston Astros from the American League Division Series.

Seventeen players appeared in that game for the White Sox. Robert had a hit that day but had to leave early with leg tightness -- one of a string of maladies that have bedeviled his career. He is the only one of those 17 still in Chicago.

The irony: If Robert was playing up to his potential, he wouldn't be around, either. And if he regains his mojo, he's as good as gone.

Robert has the chance to be the most sought-after position player in 2025's in-season trade market. Pull up any speculative list of trade candidates and Robert is near the top. Executives around the league ask about him eagerly. Despite a lack of positive recent results -- including a disastrous 2024 and a rough start to this season -- it's not hard to understand why.

"A player like Luis Robert always gets a lot of attention," White Sox GM Chris Getz said when the season began. "We're really happy where he's at, and how he approached spring training and how he's performing. We expect him to perform at a very high level."

Robert's tools are impossible to miss. His bat speed (93rd percentile in 2025, per Statcast) is elite. His career slugging percentage when putting the ball in play is .661, slotting him in the 89th percentile among all hitters. It's the same figure as New York Mets superstar Juan Soto. Robert's sprint speed (29.0 feet per second) is in the 94th percentile. When healthy, he's a perennial contender to add a second Gold Glove to the one he won as a rookie.

Still, the allure of Robert is as much about his contract as it is about his baseline talent. Smack in his prime and less than two years removed from a 5.3 bWAR season, Robert will earn just $15 million in 2025 and then has two team-friendly club options, both at $20 million with a $2 million buyout.

No potentially available hitter has this combination: a recent record of elite production, a right-now prime age, top-of-the-charts underlying talent and a club-friendly contract with multiyear potential but plenty of off-ramps. That such a player toils for a team projected to finish in the basement has for a while now made this a matter of if, not when, he is moved.

"I didn't think I'd be here," Robert said through an interpreter. "But I'm glad that I'm here. This is the organization that made my dream come true. It's the only organization that I know."

The White Sox could certainly have dealt Robert by now, based on that contract/talent combination alone. But the luxury of the contract from Chicago's standpoint is that it buys the team time to seek maximum return. First, Robert has to show he's healthy -- so far, so good in 2025 -- then he needs to demonstrate the kind of production that would make an impact for a team in win-now mode.

"He's just extremely talented," first-year White Sox manager Will Venable said. "The one thing that I learned about him, and watching him practice every day, is he practices extremely hard. He's extremely focused. He certainly has the physical ability, but he's the type of player he is because he works really hard."

Certainly, the skills are elite, but the production has been inconsistent and, for now, headed in the wrong direction.

When Robert broke in with Chicago a few years ago, he was a consensus top-five prospect. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel ranked Robert fifth before the 2020 season, but in his analysis of the ranking, McDaniel noted one of the key reasons Robert is still on the White Sox five years later: "The concern is that Robert's pitch selection is weak enough -- described as a 35 on the 20-80 scale -- that it could undermine his offensive tools."

Since the beginning of last season, there have been 202 hitters with at least 450 plate appearances. According to the FanGraphs metric wRC+, only 15 have fared worse than Roberts' 80. Only 10 have posted a worse ratio of walks to strikeouts (0.22). Only nine have a lower on-base percentage (.275).

Despite starting the season healthy, his superficial numbers during the early going are even worse than last year. As the team around him plunged to historic depths, Robert slashed to career lows across the board (.224/.278/.379 over 100 games). This year, that line is a disturbing .163/.250/.245.

There is real evidence that Robert is trying to reform. The most obvious evidence is a walk rate (10.3%) nearly double his career average. The sample is small, but there are under-the-hood indicators that suggest it could be meaningful. For example, Robert's early chase rate (34.2%, per Statcast) is a career low and closer to the MLB standard (28.5).

For aggressive swingers well into their careers, trying to master plate discipline is a tall task. Few established players of that ilk have had a longer road to travel than Robert. During the wild-card era, there have been 1,135 players who have compiled at least 1,500 plate appearances. Only 17 have a lower walk-to-strikeout ratio than Robert's career figure (0.21).

On that list are 133 hitters with a career mark of 0.3 W/SO or lower, who together account for 645 different seasons of at least 300 plate appearances. Only 26 times did one of those seasons result in at least a league-average ratio, or about 4%. Only one of those hitters had two such seasons, another 24 did it once and 108 never did it.

Still, 4% isn't zero. To that end, Robert spent time during the winter working out with baseball's current leader in W/SO -- Soto.

"It's no secret that one of the reasons why he's one of the best players in the game is that he's quite disciplined," Robert said. "And that's one of the things I want to improve."

That's easier said than done, and for his part, Soto said the workouts were mostly just that -- workouts, though they were conducted with Robert's hitting coach on hand. As with everyone else, it's the sheer talent that exudes from Robert that caught Soto's eye.

"Tremendous baseball player and tremendous athlete," Soto told ESPN's Jorge Castillo in Spanish. "He showed me a lot of his abilities that I didn't know he had. That guy has tremendous strength, tremendous power. And he really surprised me a lot in everything we did."

In this year's Cactus League, Robert produced a .300/.386/.500 slash line, with four homers.

"If I'm able to carry on the work that I did during spring training, I'm going to have a good season," Robert said. "Especially in that aspect of my vision of the whole plate. I know I can do it."

Getz -- who will have to determine if and when to pull the trigger on a Robert deal -- lauded Robert's efforts during the spring.

"Luis Robert is in an excellent spot," Getz said. "The amount of three-ball counts that he had in spring training was by far the most he has had as a professional player. So that just speaks to his determination and focus to put together quality at-bats."

It's a bittersweet situation. The remaining vestige of the last good White Sox team remains the club's most talented player. He's in his age-27 season, often the apex of a hitter's career. Yet if he reaches that apex, it's only going to smooth his way out of town.

For the White Sox, all they can do is make sure Robert can stay focused on the field, while tuning out the trade chatter that isn't going away.

"We're going to support Luis," Getz said. "I know that oftentimes he gets asked questions whether he's going to be traded, but I've been really impressed with how he's been able to remain focused on his craft. He's very motivated to show the baseball world what he's capable of doing."

Leinster front-rowers Michael Milne and Lee Barron have joined Munster on loan for the rest of the season before their summer moves to the province.

Loose-head prop Milne, 25, and hooker Barron, 23, had already signed two-year deals with Munster in January to join at the end of the current campaign.

However, an injury crisis in Munster's front-row, with Jeremy Loughman and Diarmuid Barron having both picked injuries in the past fortnight, promoted the Leinster pair make an earlier-than-anticipated switch to Thomond Park.

They will train with Munster this week and are in line to make their debut for the province against Bulls in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday.

Milne scored 12 tries in 48 appearances for Leinster after making his debut as an academy player in 2019.

He represented Emerging Ireland in 2022 and has twice been called up to train with the Ireland senior squad.

Barron represented Ireland at Under-20 level and contributed three tries in 23 appearances since making his bow for Leinster against the Sharks in 2022.

He has spent the past five years at Leinster and scored one try in seven appearances this campaign.

Sherratt praised the role of Welsh rugby's governing body.

"The WRU have been brilliant, I can't speak highly enough of how they have been," said Sherratt.

"The speed they have done it at has been impressive. But away from the business side of it, their first thought has always been about the people at the club. I got texts immediately asking if the players and staff were OK.

"Regardless of the nuts and bolts of it, the way they cared about the staff and players was the most impressive thing for me."

In the immediate aftermath of last week's takeover WRU chief executive Abi Tierney said it was "unthinkable for us to allow the demise of professional rugby in the Welsh capital".

"There is a massive amount of history here and I think the Welsh game would lose a lot if it lost Cardiff," said Sherratt.

"It's an iconic club in the middle of the city. It's essential that rugby stays."

Cardiff are currently ninth in the United Rugby Championship (URC) and return to action on Saturday where they face rivals Ospreys as part of Welsh rugby's Judgement Day at the Principality Stadium.

They then take on Munster, Bulls and Stormers in the URC in the hope of clinching a play-off place, which is awarded to teams who finish in the top eight.

"It will be nice to get back to rugby because, from my perspective in particular, it wasn't an easy week to concentrate on rugby," said Sherratt.

"Because I know the lads, I don't think they will use the last week as an excuse to let our season just peter out.

"The group are tight and they will want to finish the season in the right way."