Browsing: problem

There were some question marks surrounding Egor Demin‘s shooting ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft, and rightfully so.

Demin shot just 27.3 percent from three during his lone season of college basketball at BYU, causing many scouts to be hesitant about how his shot would translate to the NBA. But that didn’t scare the Nets away, as they saw the potential star upside in his game and selected him with the No. 8 overall pick in June.

While it’s still very early in his professional career, Demin demonstrated his skill set Friday night in his preseason debut against the Toronto Raptors. The 19-year-old, who missed the team’s first three preseason games due to a plantar fascia tear, scored 14 points with five rebounds and an assist in 19 minutes off the bench.

The performance earned him praise from teammates Michael Porter Jr. (34 points) and Cam Thomas (seven points), who believe the 6-foot-9 rookie can make a real impact in the NBA.

“Oh, yeah, he’s solid. He’s going to be really good,” Porter Jr. told the New York Post. “Positionally, for his size, if he can translate all those point guard skills over to the pros, he’s going to be a problem.

“He makes the right reads and the right plays. So I know it may take time to deal with the physicality of the point guard position in the NBA, but once he gets the hang of it, he’s going to be really, really good.”

the rook pullin’ up with confidence! @whoisegor3 | #NetsWorldpic.twitter.com/6GJIxez3Bt

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) October 18, 2025

Demin’s 14 points came on 3 of 5 shooting, including 2 of 3 from three-point range, and 6 of 7 on free throws. 11 of his 14 points came in the first half, including all of the foul shots. He also recorded a block and committed two turnovers in the 119-114 loss.

“He was great. He was great. Obviously, it’s preseason, but he was good for his first game,” Thomas said. “We’ll see what happens in Charlotte, but it was a great start for him, for sure.”

While Demin is still working his way back to full strength from the foot injury, as he only started playing five-on-five while the team was in China, head coach Jordi Fernandez was pleased with what he saw from the guard Friday night.

“He was excellent,” Fernandez said. “There’s going to be things he’s going to keep working on. We’ve got to keep building him up physically to be able to sustain more minutes. … But I’m very happy with his presence, how composed he was, how he talked to his teammates, all those things. And made it look easy.

“He shot the ball every time he was open or halfway open, got to the free-throw line and rebounded. He got five rebounds, made nice plays at the rim. It was good.”

Demin added that his first bit of NBA action was a great learning experience, and he’ll take those lessons with him into the regular season.

“Yeah, 100 percent. I’ve been told a lot about the Raptors as one of the most physical and longest teams from the standpoint of pressure almost the whole game, and how pesky they are,” Demin said. “I don’t want to say I was scared, but I was super aware of what to expect. But I also couldn’t understand what to expect in my first game … so I’m just happy we went through this and had this experience. It’s a huge lesson for all of us, and I can’t wait for the start of the season.”

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Football Manager 26 launches next month, with women’s football available on the game.

The integration was announced four whole years ago – in part because it would have been impossible to keep such a huge project quiet – but now, we’re on the cusp of seeing women’s players in the game for the very first time.

Football Manager 26 is out on November 4, 2025.

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Ravichandran Ashwin of India celebrates with Virat Kohli (Photo by Surjeet Yadav/Getty Images) Former Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has advocated for the establishment of standard Test centres for home matches in India, supporting earlier calls made by Virat Kohli in 2019. Speaking on his YouTube channel “Ash ki Baat,” the 39-year-old off-spinner emphasized the importance of considering player familiarity and pitch conditions, alongside crowd attendance, when selecting Test match venues across the country.Ashwin highlighted that playing conditions vary significantly across different regions in India, which can impact the quality of Test matches. He specifically pointed out the challenges with pitches in certain parts of the country, particularly noting the lack of bounce in eastern regions.The 106-Test veteran stressed that the selection of Test venues should prioritize locations with superior pitch conditions, where the Indian team has experience playing. This familiarity, according to Ashwin, constitutes a legitimate home advantage.”Test centres is not about crowds alone. It is also about familiarity of conditions. If we are playing a Test in Guwahati or Ranchi, I am not against these venues as a possibility. But the problem in India is every surface has a different identity. There is literally no bounce in the Eastern part of the country. It becomes a very ordinary Test match pitch then.”Ashwin expressed concern about hosting matches in venues where even Indian players lack first-class cricket experience. He referenced the recent Test match in Guwahati against South Africa to illustrate his point about unfamiliar venues.”Make sure whichever Test centre you decide has the best pitches. Some venues are better than others only because the pitches are better and the team is used to conditions. That is home advantage. Otherwise the only point is you are playing within that Indian map as home, but is not home.”The discussion aligns with ViratKohli’s previous recommendation from 2019, where he proposed limiting Test matches to five permanent centres in India. Ashwin acknowledged the historical reasons for multiple Test centres but questioned their current relevance.”Eden Gardens, Guwahati – playing against South Africa there, should there be standard Test centres? Virat said years ago they must be fixed. I personally think it’s about time, why did we make Test centres? So more cricketers could emerge, and their associations would get more funding. But Guwahati as a Test match is not a home game for either team, and I don’t think anyone in the Indian team has played a first-class game in Guwahati.”Kohli’s original proposal from 2019 suggested maintaining venue rotation for limited-overs formats while establishing fixed Test centres. His vision aimed to provide visiting teams with clearer expectations regarding playing conditions and crowd atmosphere.”We’ve been discussing this for a long time now, and in my opinion we should have five Test centres, period. I mean, I agree [with] state associations and rotation and giving games and all that, that is fine for T20 and one-day cricket, but Test cricket, teams coming to India should know, ‘we’re going to play at these five centres, these are the pitches we’re going to expect, these are the kind of people that will come to watch, crowds’.”The debate around standardizing Test venues in India continues to highlight the balance between maintaining traditional rotation policies and establishing consistent playing conditions for the longest format of the game.

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I need you to watch this video, but I also need one other thing from you that’s even more important.

I need you to know that it’s fake. Sofake. So, so, so, sofake. So fake that I’m willing to help this AI-generated sham rack up more views knowing that, as we grapple with the ever-changing digital world around us, you, for you own edification, might be better off having seen it.

Take a look here.

OK, did you watch? Looks and sounds real, right? The message is at least semi-believable: Rory McIlroy, fed up and disillusioned in the wake of him and his wife Erica sufferering verbal abuse at the Ryder Cup, declaring that he’s done competing in the United States.

The clip is so realistic — with public emotions still so charged about how the Ryder Cup played out — that it went viral. As of this writing — two full weeks after the event — it has been viewed 17 million times, been “liked” 596,000 times, received more than 31,000 comments, was reposted more than 8,000 times and, perhaps worst of all, was shared more than 214,000 times.

I was on the receiving end of a few of those shares.

There is no brag in this, but I’m confident that I’m in the small minority who knew the video was a fraud from the instant I hit play. I’ve been watching Rory McIlroy press conferences for more than a decade now. (I’ve written tens of thousands of words about … hiswords.) I’ve seen every outfit Nike has scripted him for the majors. (He hasn’t worn that shade of blue in years.) I know that the tournament branding behind him is not from the Bethpage Ryder Cup but from the Winged Foot U.S. Open — five years ago. As the video plays out and your eyes are distracted by the real clips of McIlroy and his family celebrating his April Masters victory, the tenor of his fake voice changes. It starts sounding a lot more scripted, which, of course, it is: a human script delivered by a bot.

They said ‘F–k you Rory’ — and it created a Ryder Cup monster

By:

Sean Zak

Here’s my worry: The video is damn good and mostly accurate, which makes it an affront to anyone interested in golf, the Ryder Cup or sports at large who also wants to live in a world of whole truths.

The voice manipulation is so dialed that Fake McIlroy’s Irish accent is nearly indistinguishable from real McIlroy’s; even the way he pronounces the word calm, like comm, is spot on. But McIlroy has never said anything about refusing to compete in America, and he never, ever would. Not only did he start Ryder Cup week saying he believes America is the best country in the world, but the U.S. is also home to a lot of his business. It’s where he plies most of his trade, has millions of adoring fans and lived for many years. It’s his wife’s homeland; it’s where many of his friends live; it’s where he has numerous club memberships and where his father enjoys frequent visits and golf trips.

But maybe you don’t know all that, nor should you be required to, even as AI increasingly manipulates the world in which we live. It’s not about being informed enough on the minutiae of niche topics to suss out fakes. It’s more about having a sharper, more discerning eye (or ears) than ever before. It’s about being more trusting than ever, but with an important catch — being wise about where we place that trust. The otherwise juvenile nature of the account that posted the video makes the episode doubly infuriating.

The username? @papagamblz.

The bio:owner of @papapickz, with a link to a Discord channel — you’re forgiven if you don’t know what Discord is! — that offers daily gambling advice for $35 a month.

So, yes, the perpetrator here is a new-age scam artist peddling doctored real-life moments, representing them as 90% factual but enflaming their most polarizing elements to create disinformation that spreads rapidly across social media. Exhale. All to scrounge a profit off sports gamblers, who — forgive us if we’re taking a leap here — might just be motivated to (1) Scream obscenities at Rory McIlroy’s wife, and (2) Dive into their bank accounts to wager on the nearest, juiciest moneyline. Even more troubling is another recent video from the same account that declares McIlroy is now ‘pressing charges’ against a fan at the Ryder Cup and won’t play in the U.S. until the PGA of America does something about it.

Again, not true and not close to anything McIlroy has done or would do. But it’s another video on its way to seven-figure views, and was posted five days after the original. Why? Because the Ryder Cup plays into our strongest nationalistic feelings, which is ripe to catch our eyes as we scroll. Because McIlroy is outspoken, and maybe — just maybe — he’d do that, right? And because the post’s creator knows there isn’t enough fact-checking or source-clarifying done on the fringes of anything today. I can certainly tell you if a golf video has been manipulated by AI, but could the guy sitting across from me here in the corner of the coffee shop? Probably not. Just as I — a simple Americano-with-a-dash-of-milk consumer — could be susceptible to AI videos about coffee!

So, what are we to do?

Put your faith in established media brands. GOLF.com could be one of them; Golf Digest another. Golfweek and Golf Channel, too. ESPN and The Athletic and the Associated Press. Put your faith in people rather than posts. Even better: people putting themselves in posts! Those who put their face and byline ahead of the information they’ve got to share, increasing the stakes for their involvement. Pursue context before perusing comments, the former of which takes undeniably more effort but promises the reward of fact; the latter of which, in the case of this specific AI deep fake, has turned into an unnecessary and unsurprising culture war, only lengthening the distance said video will travel. You have to scroll for a few seconds before finding anyone pointing out that the video is fake.

Which brings this back to me, I suppose, fully aware this video will travel even further now that I’ve gassed it up with 1,200 words of reflection, but I’m also hopeful that as a result of those words, there’s some smarter internet consumption on the other side.

The author welcomes your comments on AI, Rory McIlroy or even AI Rory to sean.zak@golf.com.

Of the many problems confronting WWE right now, where John Cena’s odd goodbye is the top culprit, the company probably didn’t think Seth Rollins would be near the top five.Â

How could it? Rollins is Rollins. He’s formed a stable with Paul Heyman, one of the greatest yappers to ever grace a mic in pro wrestling. And he’s taking future top-of-sport stars like Bron Breakker along with him for the ride while clashing with the very top names.Â

Yet, here we are, with fans not needing to look long or hard for Rollins criticism online, never mind fans just sort of finding themselves bored with The Vision stable.Â

Some might scoff, but the problem, at least for the most part, is Rollins himself.Â

Rollins is both one of the best to ever grace a ring with some all-timer moments that don’t need ticked off here. Fans know the drill. But he’s also the perfect encapsulation of the modern, social media-era wrestler. Fans also know the drill with every little thing about Rollins in and out of the ring, on and off the camera.Â

The impact is starting to be a little better understood here. When Rollins goes heel, he tends to crawl into and near the same usual character stuff. Cackling, funny outfits, etc. But it’s a little harder than before to separate him from the guy who is married to Becky Lynch, his public-facing family life and more.Â

That’s not a knock on Rollins, but layer on the lack of meaningful changes to his heel personas over the years, and there’s a multiplicative factor going on, it seems. Wrestlers who have crossed this threshold, like CM Punk, have to work harder than ever to actually become that bad guy fans will boo, when needed.

Rollins just isn’t there. The fact he’s finally teaming with Heyman and doing the expected good thing by taking Breakker under his wing registers as a huge positive for fans. It’s working against him in the storyline and with fans in a narrative sense, though.Â

These rumblings were around years ago, too, as far back as the weirdly booked matches with Bray Wyatt’s The Fiend persona that forced Rollins to dovetail off into a new character after fan backlash.Â

But lining up Rollins’ ensuing character there with what he’s doing now reveals how little things have changed, other than nicknames:Â

• The Messiah
• The Visionary
• The Architect
• The Kingslayer
• The Vision (a stable, but a bonus that brings to mind a Marvel character first)

Tack on “Freakin” as a middle name and, to keep things pop culture topical, they almost read like Taylor Swift Eras.Â

That doesn’t have to be a badthing, but Rollins waxing poetic about being the future of the business can only happen so many times. It almost vibes like everyone agrees his all-time heel moment of betraying The Shield was the peak and everything else is going through the motions.Â

But hey, good news: This shouldn’t be hard to fix in the slightest. Heyman is Heyman. Inner-faction conflict is as easy as it gets, given the names involved. It’s like fans are in suspended animation just waiting for Rollins to give Breakker the huge win that slingshots him to superstardom.Â

So let’s get started, right?Â

The answer is probably cutting the goofy stuff and going full-blown despicable heel who needs to be put down. And while we’re at it, why can’t, storylinewise, Rollins ever get the call from Hollywood or something greater outside wrestling like Roman Reigns, The Rock or Cena? That might sound old-school cliché, but the proven hits are hits for a reason and might just help him out.

Even without the Hollywood idea, the recipe is easy: Have Rollins snap, betray Heyman, make Breakker mad in the process and put on a lengthy feud. If the humor is gone and the wacky outfits go away and the evil dial gets turned up even a tad, there’s a launching pad that will shoot Breakker to the moon.Â

If done well, this can be a minor speedbump on Rollins’ career. He’s the prototype for the modern-era wrestler. Superstars for generations are going to emulate him like his generation has the likes of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, to name a very few.Â

After all, if anything, Rollins is the backbone of WWE. He’s the full-timer who doesn’t really leave. He’s the guy who can fit into any story at any time. There’s a reason he was the guy who took repeated massive losses on big stages to really drive home the return of Cody Rhodes to WWE as a big deal.Â

Granted, the fix here sounds simple. Maybe it isn’t so cut and dry. But Rollins being flexible and the modern-era trendsetter might have to get shoved aside. Now would be the time to get nasty. Evil, even. Match Heyman on the mic and do what he can’t physically.

Right now, fans need more from Rollins. And through it all, they have perfect faith he can pull it off, which makes it so much easier to tune out right now.

Like Rollins has shown before, though, all it takes is one status quo-ruining moment to rip them right back to attention. It needs to happen sooner than later.

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TORONTO, ON – JULY 21: Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees makes a throw in the outfield during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre on July 21, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)

In the seventh inning of Tuesday’s Game 1 of the Yankees-Red Sox Wild Card series, Eric Sogard hit what appeared to be a line-drive single to right field to put runners on the corners with Boston trailing 1-0.

Though the ball was hit into the gap, nothing about it seemed to indicate that Sogard would have a chance to stretch it into a double. Sogard has plus speed, but when Aaron Judge fielded the ball, Sogard had just rounded first base. He had to run roughly 85 feet before Judge could throw a ball 170 feet.

In any kind of normal situation, Sogard likely would have slammed on the brakes. But the Red Sox know what anyone scouting the Yankees in the playoffs will know: Aaron Judge can’t really throw since returning from a flexor strain injury.

Judge’s throw to second base was just 73.2 mph. That meant it only carried 137 feet in the air, then bounced the rest of the way. Sogard just beat the throw. That meant that when Masataka Yoshida singled to center, Sogard was able to score instead of just advancing to third. The Red Sox got no more hits in the inning, so Sogard likely would have been stranded at third. Instead, he scored the go-ahead run.

This is a perfect example of how little moments can change playoff series. It’s not Judge’s fault. When he went down with a flexor strain in late July, the Yankees’ offense understandably suffered. He hurried back, and his bat has been the driving force in the Yankees’ run to the playoffs. He still fields his position solidly, as he showed to catch a screaming line drive from Nathaniel Lowe to end that seventh inning.

But he can’t throw because his arm isn’t healthy.

Pre-injury, Judge maxed out at 95.3 mph. He had 11 throws of 90+ mph, 25 throws of 85+ mph and 42 throws of 80+ mph. He could regularly reach back to throw a ball 200+ feet if needed.

Post-injury, Judge’s hardest throw is an 85.8 mph throw on Sept. 24. He only has one other 80+ mph throw. More often, even on sacrifice flies and throws to try to catch runners going to second, he’s unable to uncork a throw harder than the mid 70s. His 73.2 mph throw was actually his fourth-hardest since the IL stint. He’s twice failed to top 70 mph on a throw on a sacrifice fly.

To put that in perspective, only five of 195 qualified MLB outfielders in 2025 averaged under 80 mph with their throws. Daulton Varsho (73.7 mph) was the only one to average under 77.

Ideally, Judge’s ailing arm would mean he would DH to avoid having a liability in right field on key throws. But Giancarlo Stanton’s defense and risk of injury if he moves to the outfield narrows the Yankees†options. Judge is a rangy right fielder with a poor arm. Stanton is a range-limited outfielder who has struggled to stay healthy when he plays in the outfield regularly.

So, Judge will keep playing right field. He is the best hitter in baseball and one of the best the game has ever seen. He’s also a good fielder with an above-average arm when he’s healthy. But from now until the end of the playoffs, his throws from the outfield will be a liability.

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Chelsea academy graduates usually have a couple of well-trodden pathways – breakthrough, loan, first team. Or breakthrough, loan, sale.

The Blues have moved on more than 40 homegrown players in the past decade, and made £315m from selling academy-developed talent in the last four seasons alone – £100m more than Manchester City.

But their latest high-profile prospect George has bucked that trend so far and can look at how Levi Colwill, Trevoh Chalobah and Reece James have progressed to first-team success.

George’s strike against Fulham on 20 April, aged 19 years and 75 days, saw him become the club’s youngest scorer in the Premier League since Callum Hudson-Odoi netted against Burnley in January 2020.

The winger’s breakthrough season included Carabao Cup games against Barrow and Morecambe, substitute league appearances against Arsenal and Brighton, and more than 750 minutes in 12 Conference League games, including a goal in the quarter-final first-leg win at Legia Warsaw.

George, who turned 19 in February, is disrupting the ‘Chelsea’ narrative thanks to a level of dedication unusual even in this era of youth development.

The last Chelsea player to come through the youth system into the first team without a loan was one of his idols, Hudson-Odoi in January 2018.

A source told BBC Sport that in his early years at Chelsea, George was a ‘middling’ player in his age group until around the age of 10.

It was at that point his dad hired a goalkeeper as well as a personal coach, David ‘Guru’ Sobers, to raise his game.

In midweek, George would train with Chelsea, and then from the age of 13 on Fridays, he would play against men in nine-a-side matches at either Vauxhall or Nine Elms Power League in South London.

On Saturdays, he would train again and go through post-match analysis with Sobers from his Power League matches the previous evening, before going back to Chelsea on Sunday to play.

“I used to spend hours travelling on public transport to do two-hour sessions, or longer, with Tyrique as I thought I could help him,” Sobers told BBC Sport.

“We would spend hours doing one-versus-one, technical work, shooting drills, and I enjoyed the fact that he would push himself so much.

“I’d be a ‘bad’ referee when he played against 18-year-olds, so he would get kicked – but have to get up and win the ball back.

“We did tactics on his Friday session during these matches. I think it helped our young players, we also had guys now at Manchester City, West Ham and Reading, become fearless, especially when coming back to their own age group.”

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JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – SEPTEMBER 12: Steven Bergwijn of Al Ittihad celebrates after scoring the 2nd goal during the Saudi…

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — So now there’s a new Poulter to root for or against: Luke Poulter, son of Ian.…