NEW ORLEANS -- In light of President Donald Trump's executive order to roll back DEI policies, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell faced multiple questions Monday about the league's intentions for equitable hiring.

During his state of the league address, Goodell doubled down on the NFL's commitment to inclusive hiring practices, such as the Rooney Rule, which the league created in 2003 and requires clubs to interview minority or female candidates for open head coach, general manager, coordinator, quarterbacks coach, and senior level positions.

"We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League, and we're going to continue those efforts because we've not only convinced ourselves, I think we've proven to ourselves that it does make the NFL better," Goodell told reporters. "We're not in this because it's a trend to get into it or a trend to get out of it. Our efforts are fundamental in trying to attract the best possible talent into the National Football League both on and off the field."

The league has made multiple updates to the rule since 2003 based on feedback from clubs and candidates. "There's no requirement to hire a particular individual on the basis of race or gender," Goodell said. "It's simply on the basis of looking at a canvas of candidates that reflect our communities and to look at the kind of talent that exists there, and then you make the best decision on who is hired.

"There are no quotas in our system. This is about opening that funnel and bringing the best talent into the NFL."

In 2021, the rule was updated to require clubs to interview two external minority candidates in person, for head coach and general manager jobs. This hiring cycle, the rule came under scrutiny because several clubs -- the Chicago Bears, New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars -- had head coaching jobs open that were publicly linked to a white candidate before completing their two external minority in-person interviews. As a result, the in-person external minority interview requirement turned into a way for fans to track whether their team was compliant with the Rooney Rule and therefore determine when they were able to hire the leading candidate.

When asked if he was concerned about the validity of the interviews extended to minority candidates, Goodell said no.

"We follow up with the candidates," he said. "We speak about the sincerity and the thoroughness of an interview to make sure that we're doing that in a proper fashion."

Goodell said there have been minority candidates he has spoken to who thought otherwise.

"There have been candidates going back a ways where they didn't feel what was authentic or what they thought was thorough enough," Goodell said. "And so we go back to the clubs and we talk about that, and I think we've made changes to our policy to make sure we deal with that."

When asked about what the league will do about corporate sponsors that are participating in DEI rollbacks, Goodell said the league doesn't make policies for sponsors or corporations or networks of partners.

"We have a lot of conversations about the importance of it to us," he said. "There's a lot of conversations that go on about that."

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Officials delayed the start of Monday's game between the San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies after a medical emergency occurred courtside just as the teams were set for tipoff.

With both teams on the floor set to start the game, emergency medical personnel quickly rushed to the aid of a man who had fallen ill in a courtside seat opposite of the San Antonio Spurs bench. EMTs administered CPR, including chest compressions as a group of medics wheeled a gurney across the court.

After several minutes, medical personnel carted the man off on the gurney as fans inside the FedEx Forum cheered for a healthy recovery.

Game officials immediately approached the scorer's table and announced they would start a 20-minute re warm-up period as both teams had returned to their respective locker rooms to await a restart.

Officials began the game after a 20-minute delay.

MEMPHIS -- The buzz surrounding San Antonio's trade for point guard De'Aaron Fox cut through the grogginess and morning chill Monday at the team's shootaround.

As Spurs star center Victor Wembanyama heaved one-legged 3-pointers from the wing, general manager Brian Wright found a seat courtside. Under the basket, acting Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson sat with Harrison Barnes to pick his brain about Fox, who was his teammate for six seasons in Sacramento.

"Even when there's so much talk about Victor, the timeline, winning and development and this evolution that we've all gone through, sometimes this league dictates the capacity or opportunity at which you can do that in the big picture," Johnson said. "When you add a player like De'Aaron Fox and you already have a strong foundation, there will be opinions and expectations that come with that, what that means, what the timeline is. We'll get into that, but we will not shy away from the reality of adding good players and things that come with that."

San Antonio officially acquired Fox on Monday as part of a three-team trade involving multiple players and draft picks, giving the Spurs an All-Star guard and clutch performer in Fox to pair next to a generational talent in Wembanyama, the reigning NBA Rookie of the Year who is set to make his All-Star debut later this month. Wright and San Antonio's brass pulled off the deal without surrendering veteran Chris Paul, Barnes or any prized young prospects such as rookie guard Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sochan or Keldon Johnson.

In Fox, the Spurs add a speedy downhill scorer who ranks fourth in total points when shooting off drives this season. San Antonio also now features a potentially unstoppable pick-and-roll combination with Fox and Wembanyama. According to Second Spectrum data, Fox has averaged 1.13 points per direct pick as the ball handler on pick-and-rolls, sixth best in the NBA. Wembanyama, meanwhile, has averaged 1.16 points per direct pick as the screener on pick-and-rolls, second in the league.

Fox, 27, is averaging 25.0 points, 6.1 assists and 5.0 rebounds and has ranked in the top three each of the past three seasons in clutch time field goals. The Spurs are 9-11 in clutch time games.

"Who do you stop between those two?" Vassell asked just as shootaround wrapped up. "I think we're going to play a lot faster and we're going to be out in transition a lot. I think it's just going to open up a lot with Fox being our point guard. Him and Wemby on the screen and roll? Then you have me and [Julian] Champagnie and certain shooters around. It's going to be an exciting offense, and I think defensively we're going to be able to get after people, too. I know Fox likes to pick up full court and kind of change the pace of the game. He's going to help us on both ends."

That's precisely what Barnes was explaining to Mitch Johnson as shootaround commenced.

After their conversation, Barnes laughed when asked whether he and Johnson were already devising schemes to feature the club's new acquisition.

"It's always good to just share knowledge," Barnes said. "Obviously, [Johnson] has a perspective as a competitor playing against him. I have the experience of being a teammate with him. So [it's all about] blending that in. ... It's going to all come together. That's the thing with the NBA: Things change quickly, and you have to be able to adjust and adapt. I think we're ready for that."

The Spurs have lost six of their past nine games entering Monday's outing at Memphis and are 12th in the Western Conference. The addition of Fox means one of San Antonio's regular starters will likely be relegated to a bench role.

Johnson said Paul and Fox can co-exist in the starting lineup. If the Spurs go that direction, Castle will become a reserve after starting in 29 games as a rookie.

"The basketball speaks for itself. He's an elite point guard, elite player in this league, dynamic scorer. He's a great person, a family man, a Texas kid. More importantly, I think he's a high-character individual. One of the things I was most impressed with when I first came [to San Antonio] was everybody being high character in this organization from the top down. I think he fits that mold. I think the best is yet to come for him."

Spurs' Harrison Barnes on De'Aaron Fox, his former teammate in Sacramento

Fox is expected join the team in Atlanta ahead of Wednesday's game against the Hawks, according to sources, who added it's still to be determined whether the point guard will make his Spurs debut then.

"I know the trade's been announced by all teams, but you still just need to get all those i's dotted and t's crossed," Johnson said. "If there is an opportunity for De'Aaron and Jordan [McLaughlin] to meet us in Atlanta and be ready to go, then they'll be ready to go. They're in the season. There's no concern of ramping up, conditioning or whatnot.

"We know there will be a runway of learning our program and terminology. There will be some patience and some excitement on both sides from the group here waiting on them and then joining the group. It'll just be something we work through and trying to expedite as much as possible without having a ton of practice time."

That's not a concern for Barnes, who said the "basketball part will be easy" in Fox's transition to San Antonio, after spending the entirety of his eight-year career leading the Kings.

"The basketball speaks for itself," Barnes said. "He's an elite point guard, elite player in this league, dynamic scorer. He's a great person, a family man, a Texas kid. More importantly, I think he's a high-character individual. One of the things I was most impressed with when I first came [to San Antonio] was everybody being high character in this organization from the top down. I think he fits that mold. I think the best is yet to come for him."

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Kings interim coach Doug Christie understood all too well what Fox experienced Monday, having also been traded midseason by Sacramento, where he spent the majority of his playing career.

"Ever since the first time I saw him play, (I) was a big time fan, and this doesn't change anything as far as always rooting for him," Christie said before Monday's game against Minnesota. "I told him as much."

The trade was yet another shakeup after coach Mike Brown's firing for a team battling to make the Western Conference playoffs. Christie said he had conversations with a few of the team's younger players about navigating the business side of trades.

"I wanted to let them know that I'm here for you, your teammates are here for you," Christie said. "That's part of what this is. You're not out there all alone."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WALK INTO ONE of the seven Ascension Coffee shops in Dallas, and there are tall glass towers that baristas use to make the upscale cafe's signature Japanese iced drip coffee. It takes 12 hours for the water to filter through before a barista hits the coffee with a dose of nitrogen and pours it in a cup. On the morning of Jan. 7, Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison invited Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka to the Ascension Coffee in the lobby of the Hotel Crescent Court, just a half-mile from American Airlines Center, to begin a similarly arduous, delicate trade conversation that would jolt the rest of the NBA.

Nearly a month later, the Lakers and Mavericks pulled off perhaps the most shocking trade in NBA history, trading 25-year-old perennial MVP contender, Luka Doncic, for All-NBA big man, Anthony Davis, without so much as a peep leaking out ahead of time.

Fans in Dallas took to the streets to protest the move, creating a makeshift memorial outside the team's arena, at the foot of the statue for Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki, who had posted a sad-faced emoji in response to the trade of a player many expected to be immortalized next to him with a statue one day.

Stars across the NBA were stunned -- including the players involved in the trade who'd been given no heads-up that discussions at this level were even taking place.

Doncic sent a quick group text to his teammates but did not answer or return Harrison's call informing him of the trade. Davis was home in Los Angeles, texting congratulations to his teammates after they'd beaten the New York Knicks on Saturday night. LeBron James was out to dinner in New York when he got a call from Pelinka minutes before ESPN's Shams Charania broke news of the trade. Kyrie Irving learned of the trade on social media while he was undergoing treatment at the Mavericks hotel in Cleveland, where the team was set to play against the Cavaliers on Sunday afternoon.

Executives from around the league were both furious and jealous that the glitzy, star-driven Lakers had been the only team given an opportunity to bid for Doncic's services.

"Unfathomable," one Western Conference executive told ESPN.

"I'm stunned," an Eastern Conference executive texted.

But while this trade seemingly came out of nowhere, sources on both sides said it was a rather direct process between two men with a long history of trust, formed over two decades with the late Lakers icon, Kobe Bryant.

Harrison decided early on, team sources said, that the best way to trade a player of Doncic's caliber was to pick the trade that he wanted, rather than open up the process, to avoid Doncic and his agent exerting their own leverage. It would also avoid the crippling fan backlash that might influence the deal.

Pelinka and the Lakers understood. Nothing could leak. Not a breath of it. They'd learned the same lesson many times throughout their recent history with blockbuster trades: the infamous failed trade for Chris Paul in 2011, which was scuttled by then-NBA commissioner David Stern after heavy pressure from rival owners; the prolonged, circus-like trade for Davis in 2019 that ruined in the second half of the 2018-19 season and contributed to Magic Johnson's ignominious ending as Lakers president; and last year's mind-boggling owner-to-owner discussions about trading James to the Golden State Warriors, which were ultimately shut down by James' agent, Rich Paul.

In all of those trades, outside forces undermined the trade process. For a trade of this magnitude to come to fruition, the circle had to be small. And the only person Harrison felt he could trust to execute this highly charged, intensely secretive process was Pelinka.

Even the Utah Jazz, the third team that facilitated the transaction by collecting two second-round picks for absorbing Jalen Hood-Schifino, didn't know Doncic and Davis were a part of the deal until about an hour before it was completed, league sources said. Even Jazz president Danny Ainge, who hails from the Lakers' hated rival, the Boston Celtics, had about only 30 minutes notice, sources said, that Los Angeles was about to acquire Doncic to be the new face of its franchise.

But by then it was too late to do much about it. NBA history was about to be altered.

PELINKA AND HARRISON'S relationship dates to the summer of 2003, when both were ambitious young executives who had earned the trust of a then-25-year-old Kobe Bryant. Bryant had left his longtime agent Arn Tellem in March 2002 and convinced Pelinka, then a junior executive at Tellem's company SFX, to leave with him.

He was also a sneaker free agent after his contract with Adidas had lapsed. Rather than re-sign with the company immediately, Bryant chose to open up the process. He'd wear Nikes one night, Reeboks another, all trying to froth the market after he'd helped the Lakers win their third championship in a row.

Nike was focused on a high schooler named LeBron James at the time and put its A-team on the case.

Harrison, then a junior executive in his mid-20s, was tasked with recruiting Bryant. He attended every home game that year, but Bryant mostly ignored him. Eventually his persistence paid off, and in the summer of 2003, Harrison and Pelinka closed a five-year, $40 million deal for Bryant to join Nike.

Their relationship was soon put to the test when Bryant was accused of rape by a woman in Colorado that September. Prosecutors eventually dropped their case against Bryant, who settled a civil suit with a financial payment and an apology, without admitting fault.

Over the next decade Pelinka and Harrison traveled the world together with Bryant on official Nike business and joint family vacations. They were members of Bryant's inner circle, and they leaned on each other when Bryant tragically died in a helicopter crash in 2020.

All of which is prologue to why Harrison only felt comfortable discussing the biggest gamble of his professional career with Pelinka.

"I understand the magnitude of it," Harrison said Sunday. "The easiest thing for me to do is nothing, and everyone would praise me for doing nothing. But we really believe in it. Time will tell if I'm right."

IN THE NEARLY four years since former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban lured him away from Nike to come run the team, Harrison has studied Doncic closely.

While he admired Doncic's talent, spirit and competitiveness, team sources said, Harrison had more doubts about Doncic than others in the organization -- such as Cuban or Nowitzki -- did.

Doncic had everything one could want in a generational superstar. He'd been a first-team All-NBA selection in each of the past five seasons. His career 28.7 points average is third in NBA history, behind only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. Last season he led the NBA in scoring with 33.9 points and nearly averaged a triple-double. But he wasn't a relentless worker like Bryant. He didn't treat his body like a temple like James.

The Mavericks' frustrations with Doncic's habits on and off the court were well known in league circles. Head coach Jason Kidd frequently expressed concerns publicly and directly with Doncic about his conditioning, weight fluctuations and constant arguing with officials.

Doncic had mostly taken the criticism without complaint, but it never resulted in a significant change in his habits.

"I mean, who gains weight during the season when you're playing 40 minutes a game?" a team source vented to ESPN last year.

Still, last season, he averaged a league-leading 33.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and 9.8 assists and came in third in MVP voting.

If Doncic wasn't going to change his ways, the Mavericks figured they would prod him by making changes around him. In August 2023, the team fired former director of player health and performance Casey Smith, who has since been hired by Jalen Brunson's New York Knicks. After last season, the Mavs fired strength coach Jeremy Holsopple and manual therapist Casey Spangler. All three had been with the team since before Doncic was drafted and had strong relationships with him.

"They get rid of everybody I like," Doncic griped in recent months, one source said.

The plan backfired.

Before last season, Doncic hired a full-time "body team" -- Slovenian national team strength coach Anže Maček, as well as physiotherapist Javier Barrio Calvo and nutritionist Lucia Almendros from Real Madrid -- that he paid for out of his own pocket.

The changes didn't result in a healthier or more available Doncic, and the internal frustration only increased as team sources complained about poor communication between Doncic's team and the Mavs' staff this season.

Over the previous six seasons, Doncic had played an average of 67 games. This season, he has sat out 27 games, including the past six weeks since straining his left calf for the fourth time in three years. He gained weight while he was out, which frustrated team officials, sources said. The primary reasoning for an 11-day absence in late November, officially attributed to a right wrist sprain, was to provide Doncic time to shed weight after he had ballooned into the high 260s, sources said. He had a similar shutdown in December 2021, early in the first season of the Harrison-Kidd regime.

Still, his production on the court was unmatched, and he turned in a series of sublime performances in the playoffs, when it mattered, to lead Dallas to the Finals.

"I don't care what he does," one All-Star told ESPN. "He still goes out and gives you 33-9-9 every night."

A rival NBA coach said: "How do you say this now when you said every year how great he looked coming into camp?"

Doncic weighed 255 pounds when he underwent an MRI on his calf in late January, sources said, and he typically played in the 250-255 range. The Mavs considered his ideal weight to be 245, which would allow Doncic to maintain his advantage of being able to bully defenders with power while maximizing his quickness and minimizing injury risk.

By far the biggest change in Dallas, though, was Cuban's December 2023 decision to sell his majority stake in the team to the Adelson family, who are casino magnates, and turn leadership of the franchise over to team governor Patrick Dumont.

Cuban had developed a strong bond with Doncic since acquiring him in a draft-day trade with the Atlanta Hawks in 2018. He'd famously joked that if he had to "choose between my wife and keeping Luka on the Mavs, catch me at my lawyer's office prepping for a divorce."

But Cuban, though still a near-nightly presence at Mavericks games, is out of the franchise's decision-making tree now, and Dumont does not have the same relationship with Doncic or the inclination to assert himself in basketball decisions as Cuban.

Dumont saw it as a business decision that would preserve the Mavericks' financial flexibility for the long term, team sources said, and he trusted Harrison's vision of how Davis would be a culture-setter and give the team a new defense-minded identity.

Doncic was eligible to sign a five-year, $345 million extension -- the highest in league history -- this summer. He anticipated signing the deal, sources said, and never gave any indication that he intended to explore the possibility of leaving Dallas. He'd even begun searching for a new home in the city. Team sources say they were as afraid of Doncic signing the deal as they were of him not.

"I feel like we got out in front of what could have been a tumultuous summer," Harrison said Sunday. "Other teams that were loading up that he was going to be able to decide, make his own decision at some point of whether he wants to be here or not. Whether we want to supermax him or not, or whether he wants to opt out. So, I think we had to take all that into consideration."

Cuban declined to comment when reached by ESPN, saying it wasn't his team anymore.

Others within the organization and those close to it, including Haralabos Voulgaris, the Mavs' director of quantitative research and development from 2018-2021, weren't so reticent to give an opinion.

This will go down as one of (Probably THE) worst trades in the history of Sports. You just traded away a top 3 player in the prime of his career and your return was a single first and a soon to be 32 year old Anthony Davis. The fact that you threw in a 2nd for good measure is...

Haralabos Voulgaris (@haralabob) February 2, 2025

"No way Mark would ever trade Luka," a team source said. "It wouldn't even be a conversation."

CUBAN WAS IN the room the last time the Lakers pulled off a trade of this magnitude. He was one of the owners who in late 2011 objected to the three-way trade that would've sent Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets to the Lakers for a package headlined by Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

It was a contentious five-hour meeting, with owners arguing over the fairness toward small-market teams and the consequences of star players being able to affect a franchise's value so dramatically with free agent decisions.

Then-commissioner David Stern ran these meetings with an iron fist, insisting that each person in the room turn their phone off until the CBA, which was being negotiated, was ratified. Anyone who violated Stern's edict heard about it in the strongest possible way. That's one reason why Jeanie Buss -- filling in at the NBA board of governors meeting for her father, Dr. Jerry Buss, who was undergoing surgery for cancer -- had no idea that her brother Jim Buss and then-general manager Mitch Kupchak were negotiating the trade for Paul at the exact same time.

If she had known, Buss would've insisted that the trade remain secret until the CBA was ratified and all the owners were out of earshot of Stern, who was acting as the de facto owner of the Hornets, giving him the ability to approve or deny the trade.

Paul was 25 at the time, the same age as Doncic now. The Lakers believed he'd be the successor to Bryant as the face of their franchise, much like they believe Doncic will succeed James one day soon.

Instead, Stern vetoed the deal, Paul went to the rival Clippers and the Lakers spent the final three years of Bryant's career and the first three years after it in the lottery trying to find the successor to Bryant, until James came to them as a free agent in 2018.

That experience taught the Lakers the value -- and consequences -- of keeping trades quiet until they were all the way done.

In 2019, they learned the hard way again, when negotiations with New Orleans for Davis turned into a drawn-out spectacle that torpedoed their relationships with many of the young players they'd drafted and developed, and hurt their leverage in negotiations for Davis.

Then last season, another monster trade was scuttled when the Lakers asked James' agent Rich Paul whether James would welcome a trade to the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors had initiated the talks after receiving information that James might be open to such a deal. But Paul said no, and the talks died out.

This time no one but Harrison, Dumont, Pelinka and Buss would have a say. Not Paul, who represents both Davis and James. Not Doncic or his agent. Not Kyrie Irving or his agent. Not even Kidd or Lakers coach JJ Redick, who formed a friendship with Doncic during their brief time as teammates at the end of the 2021 season.

"I thought I'd spend my career here and I wanted so badly to bring you a championship," Doncic wrote in a social media post directed to Mavericks fans Sunday. "... In good times and bad, from injuries to the NBA Finals, your support never changed. Thank you not only for sharing my joy in our best moments, but also for lifting me up when I needed it most."

His father, Sasa, wasn't as diplomatic.

"I think that exactly this secrecy, or should I say from some individuals, maybe even hypocrisy, this hurts me personally," Sasa Doncic said on the Slovenian broadcast of Sunday's Mavericks-Cavaliers game, translated by Arena Sport. "I think that Luka absolutely doesn't deserve this. ... I feel like this is very unfair from some individuals because I know that Luka respected Dallas a lot. He respected the whole city, helped children. It was never a problem for him to go to hospitals and to orphanages and to all of these charity events. It wasn't even a problem last year since, I am saying again, one individual said he's not fit enough. That he played, I don't know, 100 games, practically 40 minutes with two or three players constantly on him. That he was beaten and you say such things about him. I feel that this is very unfair from certain individuals. You traded him, stand by your actions but don't look for excuses or alibis, that's it."

Ultimately though, Doncic and his camp took solace in the fact Dallas traded him to a destination and franchise like the Lakers.

"Nobody likes being traded," a source close to Doncic said. "But they sent him to the Lakers when they could've sent him anywhere."

HARRISON WAS AWARE of the risks and ramifications of a trade like this from the first coffee he shared with Pelinka. Trades of this magnitude rarely happen in professional sports. They're too complicated. Too political. Too risky for all involved.

But for the past month, as the trade got more and more realistic, the size of the circle of those wrestling with the implications remained.

Then late last week, the deal picked up steam as the Lakers recruited Utah as a facilitator. The Jazz only knew they'd be receiving Hood-Schifino in exchange for two second-round picks, sources said. The Lakers had several backup plans if the Jazz option fell through.

Utah just had to complete a trade with the Clippers earlier Saturday morning to free up roster spots to take in another player. The last part of that deal was completed Saturday around the same time the Lakers and Knicks were tipping off in New York.

The Lakers had asked the Jazz to complete the trade involving Drew Eubanks and Patty Mills by the time they were finished against the Knicks because they didn't want Max Christie to have to fly back with the team on their Sunday morning flight back to Los Angeles and then learn he'd been traded.

Shortly after the Jazz completed their business with Mills, they learned of the magnitude of the trade in which they were about to be involved. All that did was buy them an extra hour to digest the ramifications.

Once the trade broke, at 12:15 a.m. ET Sunday -- sending Davis, Christie and a 2029 first-round pick to Dallas in exchange for Doncic and forwards Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris -- questions immediately arose surrounding what it might mean for James, his no-trade clause and his stated preference to finish his career in Los Angeles.

Initially, sources said that desire remains the same -- at least this season. But the Warriors could make another run at him, league sources with knowledge of the Warriors' thinking said. A reunion with Kevin Durant is also a possibility, if the Suns would ever consider it.

James can also become a free agent again this summer by declining his $52.6 million player option. He was close to Davis, whom he worked to bring to Los Angeles, but he has also spoken openly for years about his love of Doncic's game.

The trade also raised questions about the Lakers' place in the West for the remainder of the season. While James and the injured Doncic, who is expected to return this month, are both superstars, the Lakers now have a massive hole in the middle with just days left before the trade deadline to address it.

But the biggest question of all will take years to answer.

Will Doncic prove the Mavs wrong?

"I'm sorry [fans] are frustrated, but it's something that we believe in as an organization," Harrison said. "It's going to make us better. We believe that it sets us up to win, not only now, but also in the future. And when we win, I believe the frustration will go away.

"The future to me is three, four years from now. The future 10 years from now, I don't know. They'll probably bury me and [Kidd] by then. Or we'll bury ourselves."

PITTSBURGH -- Left-hander Tim Mayza and the Pittsburgh Pirates agreed Monday to a one-year, $1.15 million contract.

Mayza was 0-2 with a 6.33 ERA in 50 relief appearances last season for the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees. He did not allow a run in three postseason appearances.

Mayza, 33, is 20-9 with a 3.88 ERA and four saves over seven seasons with Toronto (2017-24) and New York. He had Tommy John surgery Sept. 18, 2019, five days after injuring his elbow during a game against the Yankees, and returned to the major leagues in April 2021.

Infielder Alika Williams was designated for assignment.

Rich Dauer, an infielder who played a decade in the major leagues and won a World Series as a player with Baltimore and as a coach with Houston, has died. He was 72.

The Orioles announced Dauer's death Monday. They did not announce a cause of death.

"My long time teammate Richie Dauer passes. Was part of the Oriole way, where you didn't have to be a star to help the O's win," Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer said on social media. "Richie had an infectious personality that kept us loose, yet focused. Another reason I was so blessed to be an Oriole for life. RIP."

Shortly after the Astros won the World Series in 2017, Dauer -- their first base coach -- had emergency surgery on a blood clot in his brain. MLB.com reported in 2023 that he had recently had a significant stroke.

"Baseball has brought incredible people into my life. Loved him when he coached me and learned from him when he was on my staff in Houston," former Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. "RIP, my friend. And thank you for being you."

Dauer played for the Orioles from 1976-85. He homered to open the scoring in Game 7 of the 1979 World Series against Pittsburgh, but the Pirates came back and won. Baltimore returned to the World Series in 1983 and defeated Philadelphia.

Dauer entered the Orioles Hall of Fame in 2012. Dauer was also part of the 2021 class for the College Baseball Hall of Fame. He helped Southern California win national titles in 1973 and 1974.

After a lengthy appeals process, Major League Baseball on Monday has fired umpire Pat Hoberg for "sharing" legal sports betting accounts with a friend who bet on baseball and for intentionally deleting messages key to the investigation into his conduct.

MLB said Hoberg "adamantly denied betting on baseball directly or indirectly," with commissioner Rob Manfred saying there was "no evidence" that Hoberg directly bet on games or manipulated the outcomes of any games "in any way."

In its statement, MLB said it fired Hoberg for failing to "uphold the integrity of the game" and that he "should have known" that his friend -- a professional poker player -- had bet on baseball from the shared account.

Hoberg, 38, was widely regarded as the best ball-strike umpire in MLB. He can apply for reinstatement no earlier than the start of spring training in 2026.

"I take full responsibility for the errors in judgment that are outlined in today's statement [by MLB]" Hoberg said in a statement via the Major League Baseball Umpires Association (MLBUA). "Those errors will always be a source of shame and embarrassment to me.

"Major League Baseball umpires are held to a high standard of personal conduct, and my own conduct fell short of that standard. That said, to be clear, I have never and would never bet on baseball in any way, shape, or form. I have never provided, and would never provide, information to anyone for the purpose of betting on baseball. Upholding the integrity of the game has always been of the utmost importance to me."

In its release, MLB detailed its findings from its investigation as well as a neutral fact finder, including information from witness testimony and review of electronic records.

Hoberg met his friend, identified as "Individual A," at a poker tournament in 2014. They golfed, traveled together and watched sports on TV. The friend was a frequent overnight guest at Hoberg's home in Iowa.

In 2019, when online sports betting became legal in Iowa, Hoberg's friend opened a legal online betting account with a sportsbook and then a second legal account with another sportsbook. Betting on these accounts was possible only from electronic devices physically located in Iowa. Hoberg asked his friend to place non-baseball sports bets for him using the accounts to do so. Subsequently, the friend gave Hoberg the username and password to his accounts so that Hoberg could place bets directly by logging into the accounts using Hoberg's own devices on occasions when his friend was not in Iowa and, therefore, not able to place the bets for Hoberg.

Hoberg's requests to his friend to place bets for him were communicated via the messaging app Telegram. The app was also used to maintain a separate log of Hoberg's direct and indirect bets placed through the friend's accounts. The ledger kept track of the amounts of money Hoberg won and lost as well as the balance Hoberg owed or was owed when he won. Hoberg and his friend would settle outstanding debts in cash when they saw each other in person.

After being contacted by MLB investigators, the friend deleted both of his Telegram threads with Hoberg. Hoberg also deleted his Telegram account. Hoberg asserted throughout the investigation and appeals process that he had no idea at the time that he was being investigated for betting on baseball because he had no knowledge of his friend's baseball bets. Hoberg said he deleted the messages simply because he was embarrassed by the frequency and volume of his legal non-baseball betting activity. Hoberg's actions regarding the deletion of messages made those messages irretrievable, as later efforts by MLB and Hoberg to recover those messages failed.

Of the 141 baseball bets placed from his friend's accounts, eight bets involved five games that Hoberg umpired or had responsibility for replay reviews. There was no evidence that Hoberg took any action to manipulate the outcome of the games. A detailed analysis did not reveal any pattern to indicate Hoberg's calls were influenced by the bets being made by his friend.

The investigation found that although the baseball bets were profitable, the data did not support a finding that bets from his friend's accounts were connected to game-fixing or other efforts to manipulate any part of any baseball game or event. The baseball betting activity also did not focus on any particular club, pitcher or umpire, and there was no apparent correlation between bet success and bet size. The eight bets on games that Hoberg worked similarly did not reveal any obvious pattern.

MLB began its investigation into Hoberg in February 2024, after the long-time umpire opened an account with a licensed sports betting operator in his own name. The operator detected that Hoberg's personal electronic device associated with the new account was also associated with the legal sports betting account of an individual who had bet on baseball.

Hoberg was subsequently removed from spring training and made inactive for the 2024 season pending completion of the investigation.

Great Britain's Sonay Kartal was knocked out in the first round of the Abu Dhabi Open after losing in three sets to American Katie Volynets.

Kartal, 23, took the opening set against world number 68 Volynets but fell to a 3-6 6-4 6-4 loss.

The 91st-ranked Englishwoman broke into the world's top 100 for the first time at the end of last season.

She was playing for the first time since making her overseas Grand Slam debut at the Australian Open last month, exiting in the first round.

Kartal recovered from losing serve in the opening game to turn around the first set, which she clinched by taking a third consecutive game.

Volynets, also 23, raced into a 5-0 lead in the second set as she took the match to a decider.

But that was only after she survived a scare as Kartal threatened an unlikely comeback, the Briton battling back to 5-4 before losing serve for a third time.

There were six consecutive breaks of serve as the players scrapped for the decisive breakthrough in the final set, and it was Volynets who struck with a first match point to set up a second-round meeting with top seed Elena Rybakina.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova has announced she will return to the sport following the birth of her son.

Former world number two Kvitova has been away from tennis for 15 months, last competing at the China Open in October 2023.

The 34-year-old Czech, who won Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014, gave birth to her son in July 2024.

"After 15 months being away from tennis and having my baby boy Petr, I'm coming back to the tennis circuit," Kvitova said in a video on Instagram.

"I really miss tennis and I miss competing, so I am really looking forward to being back. I cant wait."

Kvitova said she plans to return at the ATX Open in Austin, Texas, which begins on 24 February.

She has won 31 WTA singles titles, most recently triumphing in Miami and Berlin in 2023.

Six Nations Rugby Special's Ugo Monye, Sam Warburton and John Barclay discuss which of Scotland's flying wingers Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe is most important to the team.

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