The Sports Report: Lakers go for offense in first round of NBA draft

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. Let’s get right to the news.

From Dan Woike: The Lakers selected wing Dalton Knecht, one of the top scorers in the country who starred last season for Tennessee and fell out of the lottery, with the No. 17 pick in the NBA draft.

Knecht (pronounced “connect”) averaged 21.7 points per game last season at Tennesse while hitting 39.7% from three.

Regarded as one of the top shooters in the draft, Knecht’s defensive concerns could have contributed to his slide out of the lottery picks.

“Historic,” his father, Corey Knecht, said after. “I mean they’re, they’re one of the greatest franchises in the NBA. And then you talk about the best, probably, basketball player ever that ever laced up a pair of sneakers, it’s a huge accomplishment for him to be able to go to the Lakers plus to play alongside of LeBron.”

The Lakers, who left some teams around the league with the impression they could be aggressive on draft night, let the board come to them at No. 17 for the second straight year. It also represents another opportunity missed where the team could bundle three first-round draft picks in a major trade — an option Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka touted after a quiet deadline a year ago.

When the Lakers introduced new coach JJ Redick on Monday, the messaging centered heavily on player development, a sign that the Lakers were going to look at younger players instead of pushing their first-round pick into trade talks with their 2029 and 2031 first-round picks, which the Lakers can deal starting Thursday.

Atlanta, winners of the lottery and owners of the No. 1 pick, answered the first question Wednesday by taking French wingman Zaccharie Risacher with the first pick — the second straight season a French player topped the draft after San Antonio took Victor Wembanyama a year ago. Washington, as expected, took center Alexandre Sarr, another French player, second.

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CLIPPERS

From Broderick Turner: A collaboration between Paul George and the Clippers could come in many different forms.

And that is perhaps the most pressing concern the Clippers must evaluate, even more so than the NBA draft, which starts Wednesday night.

They don’t have a first-round pick in the 2024 draft, just a second-round selection at No. 46.

At that position, teams usually look for the “best player available,” and that will be the same for the Clippers.

The Clippers’ best options probably will be wing players and guards, and they won’t be on the clock until Thursday night.

But the most important thing for the team is dealing with George’s situation.

He has a player option for $48.7 million and has to let the Clippers know by Saturday whether he’ll opt in on his deal.

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DODGERS

From Mike DiGiovanna: Gavin Stone found himself in uncharted territory Wednesday night, on the mound in the eighth inning of a game for the first time in 19 big-league starts. But as the Dodgers right-hander completed another one-two-three inning, there was no one warming up in the team’s right-field bullpen.

This game belonged to Stone, and the 25-year-old from Lake City, Ark., sealed the deal, throwing his first major league shutout to lead the Dodgers to a 4-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox before a sellout crowd of 36,225 in Guaranteed Rate Field.

Stone blanked the White Sox on four hits, striking out seven and walking none, to improve to 9-2 with a 2.73 ERA in 15 starts on the season. He needed only 103 pitches, 73 of them strikes, to throw the Dodgers’ first shutout since Walker Buehler blanked the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 25, 2022.

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Shohei Ohtani interested in home run derby but Dodgers sound reluctant

Dodgers box score

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ANGELS

Zach Neto had a tiebreaking, three-run double in the sixth inning, and the Angels beat the Oakland Athletics 5-2 Wednesday to sweep their three-game series.

Max Schuemann had an early RBI double that should have driven in two runs for the A’s, but Kyle McCann was called out instead when he failed to touch home plate and then made contact with teammate Armando Alvarez, who had scored.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Angels manager Ron Washington, who has spent a half-century in pro baseball. “There was no play at home plate! There’s no reason to miss home plate, none at all. You could have walked from third base and touched home, but I’m glad he didn’t.”

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Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

OLYMPIC SOCCER

From Kevin Baxter: Alex Morgan was left off the roster for next month‘s women’s Olympic tournament in France, likely ending one of the most spectacular careers in U.S. soccer history.

Morgan, who will turn 35 next week, ranks among the top 10 in national team history in games (224), goals (123) and assists (53) and is a two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist. But an ankle injury has limited the forward to 213 minutes with her club team, the San Diego Wave, since mid-April and she has no goals and just one assist in eight appearances during the NWSL season.

“Today, I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to represent our country on the Olympic stage,” Morgan wrote in a social media post. “This will always be a tournament that is close to my heart and I take immense pride any time I put on the crest. In less than a month, I look forward to supporting this team.”

Morgan, the eighth-best goal scorer, male or female, in international soccer history, has a club option for 2025 remaining on her contract with the Wave, but she will be 38 by the time the next major championship, the 2027 World Cup, starts.

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OLYMPIC GYMNASTICS

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The first name is easy. It’s filling in the competitors after Simone Biles on the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team that could be a historically difficult task.

“More than any other year, I think there’s a lot of variables this quad,” NBC gymnastics analyst Samantha Peszek said ahead of this week’s U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials.

An unprecedented mix of veterans and promising newcomers, especially on the women’s side, makes this week’s trials at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn., one of the most competitive in recent history. With Biles’ name written in Sharpie at the top of the roster, a committee led by former U.S. gymnast Alicia Sacramone Quinn will select five athletes to compete in Paris for the United States’ third Olympic gold in the last four Games. The U.S. men, who begin competition at trials Thursday at 3:30 p.m. PDT, are hoping to build off a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships and contend for their first Olympic medal since 2008.

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KINGS-DUCKS

Quinton Byfield of the Kings, left, and Leo Carlson of the Ducks show off their teams’ new looks for the 2024-25 season.

(Photos courtesy of Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks)

From Chuck Schilken: The Kings and Ducks are taking a look back while stepping into the future with new uniforms that were unveiled Wednesday.

Both teams revealed logos that harken to earlier days.

Yes, Ducks fans, that means the classic and ever-popular mask logo is back. More on that in a minute.

The Kings are going with a logo very similar to one they used from 1988 to 1998 — an era that overlapped with Wayne Gretzky’s time on the team (1988-1996).

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COPA AMÉRICA

From Kevin Baxter: Salomón Rondón scored on a penalty kick in the 57^th minute and goalkeeper Rafael Romo made the goal stand up with a diving stop on Orbelín Pineda’s penalty try 28 minutes later, giving Venezuela a 1-0 upset over Mexico in a Copa América group-stage game played before a sellout crowd of 72,000 at SoFi Stadium.

With the victory, Venezuela advances to the tournament semifinals while Mexico, a loser in four of its last six matches, needs a win over Ecuador on Sunday to avoid elimination.

Venezuela got the only goal in would need when Rondón rolled a right-footed penalty kick just inside the left post for his 42^nd international goal. The goal was set up when halftime substitute Cristian Cásseres worked a give-and-go with defender Jon Aramburu that ended with Mexico’s Julián Quiñones tripping Aramburu in the box.

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SPARKS

From Marissa Kraus: Dearica Hamby went into the WNBA season with the mindset that she would be on Team USA in July. She manifested it, dreamed it, vocalized it. It’s something she has always done, projecting her goal into the stratosphere and doing everything she can to achieve it.

That made the last couple of weeks very interesting.

After not making the original U.S Olympic 3x3 basketball team, Hamby was named to the team Monday, replacing teammate Cameron Brink — who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee last week in the Sparks’ loss to the Connecticut Sun.

Hamby has already found success despite being relatively new to 3x3 basketball, having been named MVP of the 2023 3x3 AmeriCup and taking part in the national team’s camp in Springfield, Mass., in April. It’s the confidence from these showings that fueled Hamby’s thoughts about being a good fit for the team originally.

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1890 — Canadian boxer George Dixon becomes first Black world champion when he stops English bantamweight champion Edwin “Nunc” Wallace in 18 rounds in London.

1924 — Walter Hagen wins his second British Open. Hagen finishes with a 301 to edge Ernest Whitcombe by one stroke at Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake, England. Hagen, who won in 1922, was the Open’s first winner born in the United States.

1959 — Mickey Wright beats Louise Suggs by two strokes for her second straight U.S. Women’s Open title.

1971 — JoAnne Carner wins the U.S. Women’s Open with a seven-stroke victory over Kathy Whitworth.

1988 — Mike Tyson KOs Michael Spinks in 91 seconds, in Atlantic City.

1990 — NBA Draft: Syracuse power forward Derrick Coleman first pick by New Jersey Nets.

1998 — NHL Draft: Rimouski Oceanic (QMJHL) center Vincent Lecavalier first pick by Tampa Bay Lightning.

1999 — Juli Inkster shoots a 6-under 65 to win the LPGA Championship, becoming the second woman to win the modern career Grand Slam. Pat Bradley won her Grand Slam 13 years earlier.

2001 — NBA Draft: Glynn Academy center Kwame Brown first pick by Washington Wizards.

2006 — Roger Federer wins his record 42nd straight grass-court match, beating Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 to open his bid for a fourth consecutive Wimbledon championship. Federer breaks the record he shared with Bjorn Borg, the five-time Wimbledon champion who won 41 straight matches on grass from 1976-1981.

2010 — Cristie Kerr cruises to a 12-stroke victory in the LPGA Championship in one of the most lopsided wins at a major. Kerr leads wire-to-wire, closing with a 6-under 66 for a 19-under 269 total. Kerr breaks the tournament record for victory margin of 11 set by Betsy King in 1992 and matches the second-biggest victory in a major.

2013 — NBA Draft: UNLV power forward Anthony Bennett first pick Cleveland Cavaliers.

Compiled by the Associated Press