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🚨 Headlines

🏈 Major salary cap increase: Next season’s NFL salary cap will be between $277.5 million and $281.5 million. That’s up from $255.4 million last year, and represents a far greater increase than expected.

⚽️ Champions League playoffs: Real Madrid (Spain), PSG (France), Dortmund (Germany) and PSV (Netherlands) advanced to the knockouts, and the draw for the Round of 16 is tomorrow.

⚾️ The robots are coming: The automated ball-strike system (robo umps) will be tested in spring training games this year. Teams are given two ball-strike challenges per game, which they retain if successful.

🏀 Ratings way down: The NBA’s new-look All-Star Game drew just 4.7 million viewers, which is down 13% from last year and marks the second-lowest figure in the last 25 years (4.6 million in 2023).

🏈 Champs get new OC: The Eagles are turning inward to replace Kellen Moore, promoting pass game coordinator Kevin Patullo to offensive coordinator.

🏀 Is Nikola Jokić having the best season ever?

It’s easy to get fatigued by consistent excellence, so before Nikola Jokić returns to the floor tonight let’s take a moment to marvel at what is shaping up to be perhaps the best statistical season in NBA history.

By the numbers: The 7-foot Serbian is averaging 29.8 points (3rd in the NBA), 12.6 rebounds (4th), 10.2 assists (2nd), 1.8 steals (4th) and 0.7 blocks (64th) with a 66.7% true shooting percentage (7th).

• His 33.4 player efficiency rating (PER) would be the highest single-season mark ever, shattering his own record from three years ago (32.85), and his 0.334 win shares per 48 minutes would be the second-best ever.

• Add it all up and he’s on the doorstep of becoming the sixth player ever to win at least four MVPs, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James.

The greatest seasons ever: Comparing across eras is no easy feat, but Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach put Jokić’s campaign up against six of the best statistical seasons ever — Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, James, Jordan and Chamberlain’s best seasons by PER — to determine whether we’ve ever seen something like this before. Spoiler alert: We haven’t.

• Embiid (2022-23): 33.1 pts, 10.2 reb, 4.2 ast, 1.0 stl, 1.7 blk, 65.5% TS, 31.4 PER … Embiid’s scoring and assists in his MVP season produced 43.7 points per game, 10 fewer than Jokić is producing this year.

• Antetokounmpo (2021-22): 29.9 pts, 11.6 reb, 5.8 ast, 1.1 stl, 1.4 blk, 63.3% TS, 32.1 PER … Jokić has nearly as many win shares coming out of this season’s All-Star break (12.2) as Giannis had in his best statistical campaign (12.9). Seems good.

• Curry (2015-16): 30.1 pts, 5.4 reb, 6.7 ast, 2.1 stl, 0.2 blk, 66.9% TS, 31.5 PER … Curry then (NBA-record 402 threes) and Jokić now have the two most efficient high-volume scoring seasons ever. And Jokić already has more rebounds and assists than Curry did all season.

• James (2008-09): 28.4 pts, 7.6 reb, 7.2 ast, 1.7 stl, 1.1 blk, 59.1% TS, 31.7 PER … This was LeBron’s statistical apex and his first of four MVP seasons, and yet Jokić this year is averaging more points, rebounds, assists and steals.

• Jordan (1987-88): 35.0 pts, 5.5 reb, 5.9 ast, 3.2 stl, 1.6 blk, 60.3% TS, 31.7 PER … MJ’s first MVP was also the NBA’s first instance of a player winning the MVP-DPOY double. But his defensive stats might have been inflated, and Jokić is the more efficient scorer.

• Chamberlain (1961-62): 50.4 pts, 25.7 reb, 2.4 ast, 53.6% TS, 32.1 PER … Context matters. Wilt was the only 7-foot NBA regular back then, and poorer league-wide shooting meant far more rebounding opportunities. Imagine Jokić if he weren’t surrounded by other giants.

Shoutout to Shai: In almost any other season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would be running away with the MVP: His 31.03 PER is the 20th-best mark ever and he’s got the Thunder eight games ahead of any other team in the West. Unfortunately, he ran into a buzzsaw.

⛳️ Pick up the pace!

Anyone who’s ever played a round of golf knows that beyond a string of double bogeys, nothing can ruin your day quite like a slow pace of play. Turns out, that issue isn’t unique to weekend warriors.

Slow play on Tour: The final group at last month’s American Express took five hours and 39 minutes to finish 18 holes on Sunday, just one hour less than it took the NFL to complete two playoff games the same day. A week later, the final group at Torrey Pines took nearly five-and-a-half hours.

What they’re saying: Slow play has been plaguing the PGA and LPGA Tours for years, resulting in a growing cacophony of complaints. And at Torrey Pines, former LPGA star and longtime analyst Dottie Pepper couldn’t take it any longer.

• “I think we’re starting to need a new word to talk about this pace of play issue, and it’s respect,” she said on the broadcast. “For your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasts. It’s just gotta get better.”

• “It’s been gnawing at me and a lot of people for a while,” she added. “It’s on fire post-COVID, and it’s our darn fault if we don’t do better. … Let’s not mess it up.”

So, what can be done? Most everyone agrees this is a problem worth solving, but there’s no consensus on how to do so (although smaller field sizes, coming in 2026, should help). Do you add a shot clock like TGL has done? Do you ban the time-consuming practice of AimPoint putting? Do you penalize repeat offenders?

The LPGA leads the way: While the PGA Tour will soon begin testing various time-saving initiatives, the LPGA Tour has already announced a new policy that should see immediate results. Starting next month, players will be penalized for failing to hit their shots within the allotted 40 seconds.

• Exceed by 1-5 seconds: Fine

• Exceed by 6-15 seconds: One-stroke penalty

• Exceed by 16+ seconds: Two-stroke penalty

Bottom line: The next time you’re grabbing a hot dog at the turn and wondering how you’ve already been on the course for nearly three hours, just remember: pros are going through the same thing — and they can’t even enjoy a transfusion while they wait.

⚽️ How the next 18 months could reshape soccer in the U.S.

Over the next 18 months, a convergence of marquee events, ambitious reforms and long-awaited decisions could transform soccer in the U.S. at every level.

From Yahoo Sports’ Henry Bushnell:

The grandiose statements, about “unique opportunity” and “transformational change,” are popping up everywhere these days in American soccer. The bold, buzzword-heavy proclamations have become so ubiquitous they blur together. They are so frequently parroted, and oftentimes so vague, that they feel empty, bereft of substance.

But here’s the thing: They’re also true. The next 18 months aren’t just an exciting time for the sport; they could reshape it at all ages and levels, for all genders, in a variety of ways across the United States.

They’ll conclude with a men’s World Cup right here, at home, but it’s not just that; it’s the Club World Cup, and a bid for the 2031 Women’s World Cup; it’s the dwindling days of Lionel Messi in Miami, and a pivotal period in the still-early days of the NWSL.

It’s ongoing talks of overhauls in MLS and college soccer. It’s the opening of a national training center, and the implementation of U.S. Soccer’s new nationwide player development strategy. It’s the USL’s ambitious plans to expand — and start a new top-tier men’s league.

It’s possibilities, but also pressure. It’s consequential decisions, and a moment that no American soccer stakeholder wants to miss. And most of it, of course, is centered around 2026.

Coming up: The 2025 MLS season kicks off this weekend, with 13 matches on Saturday and two on Sunday.

📺 Watchlist: 4 Nations championship

The U.S. and Canada meet tonight* (8pm ET, ESPN) in Boston in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship.

What they’re saying: “It’s the biggest game I’ve played in quite some time. Maybe ever,” said American Jack Eichel, who won the Stanley Cup with Vegas two years ago.

More to watch:

• ⚽️ SheBelieves Cup: USA vs. Colombia (8pm, TBS) … The 10th edition of the four-team women’s tournament kicks off in Houston.

• ⚾️ MLB: Cubs at Dodgers (3:05pm, MLB) … The first game of spring training.

• 🏀 NBA: Celtics at 76ers (7pm, TNT); Suns at Spurs (9:30pm, TNT) … Boston (39-16) remains 5.5 games behind the first-place Cavs (44-10).

• 🏒 PWHL: Boston at Ottawa (7pm, YouTube) … The fifth-place Charge host the fourth-place Fleet.

*Kings of the ice: Canada has won nine of the 13 best-on-best tournaments since NHL players began participating. That includes five of the past six and three in a row.

🏀 College hoops trivia

Nine SEC schools are currently in the AP men’s basketball Top 25. Can you name them all?

Answer at the bottom.

✍️ Good reads

⚾️ Russell Dorsey: Six players to watch in spring training

Some of this spring’s most interesting characters are new on the scene, returning from injury or projected to break out in 2025.

🏈 Frank Schwab: The NFL’s top 10 free agency storylines

Few offseason moves have an impact quite like the Eagles signing Saquon Barkley. But when free agency officially opens on March 12, plenty of teams will be trying to replicate Philly’s championship-winning acquisition.

🏀 Morten Stig Jensen: NBA rookie report

Let’s look at some of the most notable players in this year’s rookie class and how they’ve performed thus far.

Trivia answer: No. 1 Auburn, No. 2 Florida, No. 4 Alabama, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 15 Missouri, No. 17 Kentucky, No. 21 Mississippi State, No. 24 Ole Miss

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