FOUR MONTHS BEFORE Nico Iamaleava shocked the college football world by leaving Tennessee for UCLA, signs of his discontent were apparent.

On Dec. 28, hours before the winter transfer portal window closed, Tennessee sources say Iamaleava's representatives, including his father, Nic, reached out to the Tennessee NIL collective, Spyre Sports Group, and were looking to increase Iamaleava's pay for 2025 to around $4 million. Hitting that target would put him closer to the amount eventually procured by transfer quarterbacks Carson Beck (Miami) and Darian Mensah (Duke) during the winter portal. Iamaleava was set to make around $2.4 million at Tennessee this year, sources said.

Sources close to the quarterback deny they were seeking $4 million.

Iamaleava wasn't returning phone calls from coaches at this point. Sources close to the quarterback said he needed to take a "mental break" following the Vols' 42-17 loss to eventual national champion Ohio State in the first round of the College Football Playoff, but they acknowledged that they did seriously consider entering his name in the portal.

Tennessee sources say they believe the Iamaleavas reached out to several schools, including Miami, Ole Miss and Oregon, to gauge interest. Tennessee coach Josh Heupel was seemingly able to smooth things over and keep Nico on board for 2025, but the quarterback did not receive a new deal or more money.

But while the deterioration of the relationship between Iamaleava and Tennessee was months in the making, the whirlwind that followed his decision to skip practice on April 11 -- a day ahead of Tennessee's spring game -- and enter the transfer portal was dizzying.

Coaches and teammates attempted to reach him that day, a Friday, but were met with silence.

"As the day went on, it started to become obvious. He was gone and wasn't coming back," a Tennessee source said.

A little more than a week later, Iamaleava had signed with UCLA. A source described Iamaleava's UCLA agreement as paying him less than what he was earning at Tennessee but more than the $1.5 million that some have reported. A day after UCLA announced Iamaleava's signing, the Bruins' expected starting quarterback, Joey Aguilar, left and reportedly joined ... Tennessee.

It became the crystallization of college football in 2025 in which million-dollar quarterbacks can become free agents every season and Power 4 starters can essentially be swapped for each other. The ripple effects will be felt far into next season, when the fortunes of a Tennessee team with playoff aspirations and a UCLA squad under pressure to turn things around quickly hang in the balance.

How did a once-promising relationship between school and QB fall apart so swiftly? What does Iamaleava's big move mean for UCLA? And what comes next for both sides after the most prominent college football breakup in recent memory?

THE DAY OF Iamaleava's no-show at Tennessee, UCLA coach DeShaun Foster spoke with ESPN about the start to the Bruins' spring practice session. Foster had completed his first full offseason leading the program and had made key changes to the coaching staff and to the roster, including the additions of offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri and Aguilar, a transfer from Appalachian State.

Foster was complimentary of Aguilar during the interview. UCLA was prepared to "lean on" Aguilar's experience, especially with Sunseri coming in from Indiana and installing a new offense.

"I don't want to say he's just a pocket passer, but he does a good job of getting the ball out of his hand, anticipating some throws," Foster said. "Being that this is a new system for him, I just like the way he's approaching each practice. You can just tell that he's getting more vocal, he's getting more comfortable, and he's been able to assert his leadership a little bit more."

But by the end of the day, UCLA's quarterback situation seemed foggier because of what was happening more than 2,000 miles away in Knoxville. Once Iamaleava was officially in the transfer portal, the Bruins emerged as the front-runners for the Southern California native practically by default.

Sources close to Iamaleava were confident he could secure a deal for more than $4 million at his next school, but he was working with little leverage. SEC players cannot transfer to another SEC program in the spring and immediately play in the fall, so those schools weren't involved. Iamaleava's absence from the Friday practice also created a perception among coaches that he had attempted a holdout.

High-profile players and their reps seeking offseason pay raises is nothing new in the era of NIL and the portal, especially this year with the imminent arrival of revenue sharing. But rarely do these discussions devolve into a public feud.

"It's been going on in a lot of programs for a while," a Power 4 personnel director said. "You just don't hear about it. It's happening more than people think. It's just public because it's Tennessee and it's Nico."

Sources at USC, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Texas Tech and several other Power 4 programs told ESPN they weren't getting involved with Iamaleava. Some had quarterbacks locked in; others were hesitant to deal with Iamaleava's representatives. The Bruins, meanwhile, were debating whether to move forward but would be interested if the price was right.

Although UCLA had been pleased with Aguilar as a good fit for Sunseri's offense, it also viewed Iamaleava as a clear upgrade. He had started a full season for an SEC team that went to the CFP. UCLA recognized some of the drama in Iamaleava's orbit, but the player himself was well-liked by those inside the Tennessee program until his no-show and was fairly productive on the field while staying healthy. Iamaleava passed for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns, but in his eight SEC games and the playoff game against Ohio State, he passed for more than 200 yards only twice.

"If it wasn't a local kid, it would've been a little bit more difficult. But being able to see him play in high school and evaluating that film at Tennessee wasn't hard to do," Foster said. "A lot of the kids on the team know him and have played with him."

IAMALEAVA'S ATTEMPTED NIL renegotiation was just the start of a tumultuous offseason. It soon became increasingly evident to those at Tennessee that Iamaleava's camp was looking into options elsewhere.

Multiple sources at Tennessee told ESPN that Iamaleava missed two offseason workouts in February and that his father told Tennessee coaches that Iamaleava's attorney advised him to skip workouts until he worked things out with Spyre. Iamaleava's camp contends the absence was over a payment issue with Spyre. A Spyre representative told ESPN that there were no missed payments. Nic Iamaleava could not be reached for comment. The quarterback returned to workouts the next week, but his NIL deal remained unchanged.

Before Tennessee's spring practices began in March, school officials were alerted by Oregon's staff that Iamaleava's camp had contacted the Ducks inquiring about their interest, according to sources at Oregon and Tennessee. Oregon told the Iamaleava camp it wasn't interested.

Sources close to Iamaleava told ESPN that the family's primary concern in the offseason was less about his compensation and more about Tennessee's efforts to build up a better supporting cast on offense. Those close to Iamaleava were concerned about pass protection and his overall health. Iamaleava sat out the second half of the Mississippi State game after a concussion, but he went through the concussion protocol and was cleared the next week by medical personnel and played against Georgia.

Those in Iamaleava's camp expected Heupel to shore up the offensive line and reload at wide receiver this offseason, with one source saying the coach made "false promises" about those efforts. When asked to respond, Heupel declined to comment through a university spokesperson, saying he was done talking about Iamaleava.

The Vols must replace four starting offensive linemen in 2025 and brought in two transfers who had been starters, Arizona's Wendell Moe Jr. and Notre Dame's Sam Pendleton, as well as five-star freshman tackle David Sanders, who was part of a 2025 recruiting class ranked 11th nationally by ESPN. The receiving corps will feature considerable youth in 2025 after Dont'e Thornton Jr. and Bru McCoy graduated and Squirrel White transferred to Florida State.

The lone wideout added via the portal in January, Alabama's Amari Jefferson, is a redshirt freshman. Former five-star recruit Mike Matthews will be a sophomore next season after catching only seven passes in limited opportunities in 2024. Matthews and fellow freshman Boo Carter, who will play receiver and defensive back next season, both considered entering the winter portal before agreeing to return to Tennessee.

"You kept hearing rumblings all spring that [Iamaleava] one way or the other wouldn't be here in the fall," one Tennessee source told ESPN. "A lot of people were surprised he missed that practice, but it wasn't the first time he missed something he was supposed to be at, so I don't know if anybody should have really been that surprised."

According to Tennessee sources, talks continued into the spring between the collective and Iamaleava's side. There had been opportunities in place for Iamaleava to make "well into the six figures" in additional NIL earnings, one source said, if he agreed to certain appearances and requests, but he declined to do so.

Even though Iamaleava participated in spring practice, sources told ESPN that a general uneasiness still lingered throughout the program and athletic department about whether the quarterback would stick around for the 2025 season.

"We were just hoping we could make it to December [2025], and then we knew he was gone, either to the NFL or transferring somewhere else," a source within the Tennessee program said.

AS TENNESSEE'S SPRING practice reached its final week, sources said Iamaleava told at least one teammate after the Vols' Wednesday practice that he planned to enter the transfer portal on the Sunday after the spring game.

"I'm getting in the portal, if you need to handle your business," Iamaleava said as he was walking off the practice field, according to a Tennessee player who heard him say it.

One of the teammates went to Heupel to alert him. Heupel met with Iamaleava to make sure everything was OK and didn't mention anything about the information coming from teammates, and Iamaleava assured his coach that everything was good and that it was "all a bunch of rumors."

The following day, a report from On3 emerged that Iamaleava and Tennessee were in "active negotiations" for a new deal. Iamaleava's camp tells a wholly different story. Cordell Landers, an adviser who previously worked as assistant director of player personnel at Florida under Dan Mullen, and Iamaleava's father took to social media to adamantly deny that negotiations were taking place.

Iamaleava does not have an agent. His team of advisers includes his father and Landers, who has been close with Nic since high school, as well as sports attorney Michael Huyghue, the former commissioner of the United Football League.

Sources close to the quarterback insist they've had zero conversions with Heupel or Spyre since January regarding his deal and deny they were seeking $4 million, even going so far as to suggest Nico was already making that much. "The family is happy with Tennessee," a source told ESPN that night, in response to the On3 report. "Nico is happy. We're good." But the report itself sowed far more distrust and a suspicion that Tennessee coaches or the NIL collective was responsible for leaking information.

"It was a false narrative and they took that s--- and ran with it," a source close to Iamaleava said. "It became bigger than what it was, when it wasn't even the case."

As his phone blew up Thursday with calls and texts, Iamaleava was blindsided. He still attended a dinner along with his fellow Tennessee quarterbacks Thursday night at the home of Joey Halzle, Tennessee's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

But later that night, sources close to Iamaleava say he reached his breaking point. He couldn't understand why the reports were coming out, where they came from or whom he could trust going forward, and he felt pressured to make a decision about his future. He was ready to leave, sources said, but his father encouraged him to sleep on the decision.

That next morning, Iamaleava didn't show up for Friday's practice or meetings and didn't alert anyone in the program.

Nic Iamaleava urged his son to go in and meet face-to-face with Heupel and his coaches to work things out, but Iamaleava felt betrayed, sources said, and did not speak with Heupel on Friday. Several people within the Vols' program tried to reach out to the quarterback to no avail.

"He's hurt and he's disappointed," a source close to Iamaleava said Friday morning. "They're making him look like the villain and the scapegoat."

On Friday night, Iamaleava called Halzle to inform him that he was completing his paperwork and planned to enter the transfer portal when it opened April 16.

"He was never a troublemaker," a Tennessee source said, "worked hard and didn't cause problems in the locker room. He was quiet and kept to himself a lot, sort of had that California cool to him, but it's unfair to paint him as a bad kid."

Iamaleava's locker was cleared out early Saturday morning before Heupel told the team its starting quarterback would no longer be part of the team.

"I want to thank him for everything he's done since he's gotten here, as a recruit and who he was as a player and how he competed inside the building," Heupel said after the spring game. "Obviously, we're moving forward as a program without him. I said it to the guys today. There's no one that's bigger than the Power T. That includes me."

REGARDLESS OF THE drama, UCLA's ability to land Iamaleava after his surprise departure from Tennessee is considered a major move. And now his brother Madden -- the nation's No. 145 recruit last year -- is also transferring to UCLA in a package deal that elevates expectations for the program.

"When's the last time we had this many people here talking to us?" Foster asked Tuesday. "You guys know what I'm saying, so this is a good buzz for us."

Arkansas's NIL collective, Arkansas Edge, is expected to attempt to recoup some of the money it paid to Madden Iamaleava, a source told ESPN, after he had signed a one-year agreement but departed within two months of joining the program. Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek announced Tuesday that he'll support those efforts because "enforcement of these agreements is vital in our new world of college athletics."

Once it became clear Nico Iamaleava could be on his way to Westwood, representatives for Aguilar began evaluating their options. Aguilar continued to participate in practice with the Bruins last Friday despite reports that a commitment from Iamaleava appeared imminent. UCLA coaches notified the quarterbacks of their decision Sunday. Less than 24 hours later, Aguilar was back in the transfer portal.

Tennessee inquired with the agents of several Big 12, Big Ten and ACC starting quarterbacks about the possibility they would become available in the transfer portal, sources said, a tactic that has become commonplace across the sport as players increasingly seek representation. But it's not easy to pry one away in the spring with most returning starters already locked into seven-figure deals with their current teams. Illinois' Luke Altmyer, TCU's Josh Hoover and Kansas State's Avery Johnson were all rumored to be interests of Tennessee but couldn't be flipped, according to sources.

"We got a damned wall built around him," a Kansas State source told ESPN, referring to Johnson. "They better bring the Tennessee National Guard."

In the end, Tennessee's best option ended up being the quarterback who had to leave UCLA.

And now the Iamaleava-Aguilar swap will be closely watched from coast to coast this season.

"You want to be in conversations," Foster said Tuesday, "you want to play big-time ball, you want to have haters, you want all this stuff because that means that you're trending in the right direction, so if you want to play big-time ball, you can do that at UCLA."

ESPN college football writer Paolo Uggetti contributed to this report.

Jimmer Fredette, a college basketball star at BYU who went on to become an NBA lottery pick and then played for the U.S. in 3x3 basketball at last year's Paris Olympics, announced his retirement Wednesday.

"Basketball has taken me all around this world: from Glens Falls NY, to BYU, the NBA, China, Greece, and even Team USA at the Olympics!" Fredette wrote in a social media post. "This game and my love for it has shaped me into the person I am today and for that I am forever grateful. So many memories and amazing moments. It wasn't always easy, but it was always worth it! The next journey starts now."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jimmer Fredette (@jimmerfredette_32)

At BYU, Fredette led the country with 28.9 points per game in 2010-11 and won consensus national player of the year honors while leading the Cougars to their first Sweet 16 appearance in 30 years.

Fredette, 36, was the No. 10 pick by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2011 draft before being traded to the Sacramento Kings. He spent parts of six seasons in the NBA with Sacramento, Chicago, New Orleans, New York and Phoenix.

He also played professionally in China and Greece, winning the MVP award in the Chinese Basketball Association in 2017. Fredette had games of 70 and 75 points in China, including one where he scored 60 points after halftime.

The best years of his playing career may have been his final ones, when he turned his attention to 3x3. Fredette was a star in that fast-paced, half-court game for the U.S., helping the Americans win gold medals at the 2022 FIBA 3x3 AmeriCup and 2023 Pan American Games along with a silver at the 2023 FIBA World Cup. He was USA Basketball's 3x3 male athlete of the year in 2023.

He entered the Paris Olympics as the top-ranked 3x3 men's player in the world, with the Americans ranked No. 2 worldwide. But Fredette suffered an adductor muscle injury early in the tournament, and the U.S. by rule could not replace him on its four-man roster for the Paris Games, so the Americans had to play the rest of the Olympics with three players and no substitutes.

"I owe a lot of who I am today to this game and it's not easy to say goodbye as a player," Fredette wrote. "But the time has come."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The New Orleans Pelicans have hired Troy Weaver as their senior vice president of basketball operations, a source told ESPN's Andscape on Wednesday.

Weaver will report to new Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations Joe Dumars, who had an introductory news conference in New Orleans on Tuesday. Weaver is departing the Washington Wizards, having served as a consultant with them.

The Washington, D.C., native also spent nearly four years as the Detroit Pistons general manager before being relieved of his duties May 31.

Weaver was hired by the Pistons as their general manager on June 18, 2020. Under him, they were 74-244 overall and did not make the postseason. Weaver, however, did have some notable draft picks in NBA All-Star Cade Cunningham, injured guard Jaden Ivey, starting guard Ausar Thompson and reserve center Luka Garza, now with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Detroit also did not have much luck in the NBA draft lottery under Weaver, landing the No. 5 pick three straight years.

Weaver was also player personnel director for the Utah Jazz in 2007-08 before spending three seasons (2004-07) as the Jazz's head scout. Weaver had served as vice president and assistant GM for the Thunder since 2008. He was promoted to VP of basketball operations before the 2017-18 season.

THE DAY AFTER the visiting Denver Nuggets ended the Houston Rockets' nine-game winning streak in late March, Amen Thompson stepped in front of his teammates at the team's newly opened 75,000-square-foot training facility.

Finally, it was his turn in the team-bonding exercise: Tell your life story in five minutes.

"Everybody goes over the time," Thompson told ESPN.

He couldn't help it.

Spinning essentially the same two narratives into one as the Rockets leaned in closely to listen, the soft-spoken Thompson explained how the young man before them had grown up in the Oakland, California, area with an ultra-competitive identical twin brother, Ausar Thompson, born a minute later, in a supportive family that played an integral role in manifesting dreams jotted down on a family vision board as 9-year-olds.

"They're like that if you know their background and history," Houston coach Ime Udoka told ESPN. "So, we got to learn a little bit more about Amen's background than we already knew. Anytime you have a twin brother that's in the position that they're in, you just know they came up going at each other. Their father [Troy Thompson] got after them and obviously grew them into who they are. Their competitiveness was always there."

Amen and Ausar, now 22, are the first twins in league history to be drafted in the top five (Amen was drafted No. 4 by the Rockets and Ausar followed at No. 5 with the Detroit Pistons) and are making their playoff debuts in their second seasons as cornerstone pieces for a pair of franchises on the rise.

Amen admits he "wasn't expecting it," adding that Ausar "always believed since last year" that the twins would seriously vie for a Larry O'Brien Trophy in 2025.

"It's super cool," Ausar said. "Last year, Amen was talking a lot about us. They had 41 wins. We had 14. He was like, 'Flip the number around and that's how many wins y'all got.' But I was like, it doesn't matter. Y'all didn't make the playoffs. We didn't make the playoffs. Now he can't say that. We made the playoffs the same year. All he can say is they've got a better record. I promise you next year it won't be."

Amen's Rockets are down 0-1 to the Golden State Warriors, and will look to even the series Wednesday night. Ausar and the Pistons, meanwhile, snapped a 15-game postseason losing streak, the longest in NBA history, with a win over the New York Knicks on Monday night and will look to take a 2-1 lead as the series heads to Detroit on Thursday.

For now, though, Amen wants to focus on the present. He's "not doubting [Ausar's predictions] anymore" but envisions a grander picture for the Rockets and the Pistons in the 2025 playoffs.

"I want to see him in the Finals," Amen told ESPN. "That would be fire. But just one of us wins. I know who that's going to be."

Clearly, the brothers disagree.

"Man, we would whoop 'em," Ausar told ESPN. "This year, when we played, when we had all of our players, we beat them."

ON THE NIGHT the Rockets bested the Utah Jazz 143-105 to become the second Western Conference squad to punch its postseason ticket, Amen leaned back at his locker in the Toyota Center and chuckled, reminiscing about his family's vision board.

The twins' mother, Maya Wilson, forbade the boys from playing football. So, by age 7, their father, Troy, was running Amen and Ausar through basketball drills put together years before for their older brother, Troy Jr., who played at Prairie View A&M and is viewed by the twins as "the blueprint" for their success.

That daily grind sparked a dream for the twins, who share the middle name XLNC (pronounced "excellency").

"They're special people," Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff told ESPN of the Thompson family. "You can tell they instilled in them that the team was greater than any individual and that there was more to it than just being a good basketball player, and the importance of being able to take care of yourself mentally, physically, spiritually, all of it."

Thumbtacked to a wall in penmanship impressive for a pair of 9-year-olds, the Thompson family vision board was titled "Amen & Ausar's 6'9" Dreams," written in graffiti with markers above a drawing of a black-and-white camouflage Nike Air Foamposite One sneaker. Just underneath, the goals followed, each marked with a star.

• Become The Greatest NBA Player of All-Time

• Become a Multi-Billionaire

• Get a shoe company

• Become 6 ft. 9 inch[es]

"Yeah, my dad always believed in writing down what you wanted to do," Amen told ESPN. "It's writing down like basically just affirmations. I forget what I wrote. But it was just writing it down so that we have a guideline and things we needed to do to get there."

Below the goals, the twins wrote a 10-step daily to-do list just above their signatures scribbled in cursive.

"Some of the stuff in there was kind of crazy," Amen said. "We used to do it, though. But some of that stuff was hard to do every day."

No. 1 on the list was "run 2 miles dribbling left-handed," then "200 pushups, 200 sit-ups, 50 pull-ups, 500 calf raises, squat while watching TV." The last two steps were "eat vitamins every day, healthy foods, and milk," ending with No. 10: "hustle as hard as possible always."

Troy always wanted the boys to compete with the same relentless ferocity and hustle as Russell Westbrook. They acquiesced. Eventually, friendly pickup battles morphed into brawls. It reached the point that Troy no longer wanted his twins to play against each other one-on-one.

"Whoever lost would just start fighting and stuff," Amen said. Ausar claims "it was always Amen who started it," which Amen does not deny.

"He would get so mad," Ausar said. "We'd get home, and he'd still be mad. Our dad would be like, 'Alright, we're going on a spiritual walk.' And it would be just him and my dad, and they'd walk maybe like 4 miles. It's funny."

In one instance, Amen says a scuffle he started resulted in a 14-mile hike.

"I would be so mad, especially if Ausar didn't have to go, and it was just me on the hike," Amen said.

Did Amen's punishments make Ausar feel guilty?

"Hell no," Ausar said. "He was trying to hurt me. I would try to go home, and he just wouldn't let us go home [until he won]. So, it's like, 'Yeah, you don't want to go home? Go do that spiritual walk up the hills.'"

The competitiveness spilled over to high school at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they transferred after leaving California just before starting the eighth grade. Highly regarded for its academics, Pine Crest allowed Amen and Ausar to play varsity basketball as eighth graders.

By the end of their junior season, they had dominated for four years on varsity, leading Pine Crest to a state championship on the way to becoming Co-Players of the Year for Classes 4A-2A. The opportunity to join Atlanta-based Overtime Elite, a new professional basketball league that aimed to provide athletes an alternative path to the NBA, would come once the twins started the AAU season.

They decided to skip their senior year at Pine Crest to commit to OTE, due to the league's 24-hour access to a gym, NBA-level trainers and coaches, and top-notch competition -- not to mention the minimum $100,000 salary.

Amen said he immediately saw improvements in his game.

"But I still feel like when we were in the predraft [process], because we were on OTE, people thought we were not going to be ready for the league because they said we were playing against 15- and 16-year-olds," Amen told ESPN. "Just making up lies for a narrative. We played up our whole lives. And if I'm running [away from competition], I can only run for so long. We've always wanted to be the best. You can't be the best and run."

The 6-foot-7 twins with wingspans of nearly 7 feet played two seasons with OTE before Houston and Detroit drafted Amen and Ausar fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 2023 NBA draft.

"Everybody says they have dogs on their teams," Udoka told ESPN. "Some are pit bulls and some are poodles. We try to go get pit bulls. He's exactly what we want, need, look for, all of the above. We love guys with his length, athleticism and versatility. He fits. Everything he brings to the table, we were thrilled to get him at the spot we got him. He was the guy we fell in love with. He fits everything. He fits the mold of the modern-day NBA, but also of what we're trying to do here."

Bickerstaff felt similarly about what he wanted to bring to Detroit.

"You want guys who are versatile and who can impact the game on both ends of the floor, and you are looking for tough, competitive, fierce dudes that are willing to do whatever it takes and guys who are willing to sacrifice," he told ESPN. "Ausar is all those things. He is what you're looking for."

THE THOMPSON TWINS last saw one another in Miami in March, when the Heat hosted the Pistons and Rockets in back-to-back outings that turned out to be victories for the visiting teams. Armed with versatile two-way skill sets and explosiveness, the Thompsons significantly impacted the outcome of both contests as primary defenders on Tyler Herro.

Amen flashed the most eye-popping display. Miami had defeated Houston in a December matchup marred by six ejections that included Thompson, Herro and Udoka in the final minute. And a sore ankle kept him out of the previous six outings going into that matchup.

Defending Herro primarily, Amen notched seven steals and a block as Houston turned 21 Heat turnovers into 24 points. The Heat guard had fared better two nights prior against the Pistons. But both of Ausar's steals that night came while guarding Herro.

Former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone described film clips of the Thompson brothers from this season as "incredible."

"You're really seeing both of those guys this year growing into their own, making a name for themselves," Malone said. "Their athleticism, their ability to guard 1 through 5, how strong they are, how fast they are [is impressive]."

Amen might be slightly further along in his development than Ausar, due to the latter missing the last 19 games of his rookie season and the first 18 games of his 2024-25 campaign because of a blood clot issue. Ausar didn't make his season debut until Nov. 25.

"You can go back and almost look at the numbers directly," Bickerstaff told ESPN. "When he came back and was playing minutes, our pace picked up because he'd get rebounds or he runs the floor, pushes and attacks. He's a really good passer and offensive rebounder. Defensively, he's just a menace. He's just all over the floor. He's grown so much. But I think a lot of it just has to do with him being able to play and getting those games under his belt."

Udoka sees similar growth in Amen, who joined the Rockets as a point guard primarily. When Alperen Sengun suffered an injury last season, Amen filled in at power forward, honing his skills as a screener and roller. Amen also spent plenty of time at the dunker spot and moved to point guard for long stints this season when Fred VanVleet missed extended time with injury.

"So, he took all of that and added it to his toolbox," Udoka told ESPN. "He has pretty much played every position, and I think those experiences of different things he hadn't done before is what's really propelled him. He was a point guard and only knew one way to play: get out in transition, make passes, get to the basket. Now the fact that he can roll under and play in the dunker and do all those different things has expanded his game."

From Dec. 23 to the end of the regular season, Amen and Ausar are the only two players in the NBA to log 100 offensive rebounds and 125 combined steals and blocks. While Amen holds a slight edge over Ausar in production on a per-game level, the numbers stack up similarly on a per-36-minutes basis.

According to GeniusIQ, an AI-powered sports analytics site, Amen and Ausar rank in the top five in average jump height (2.38 feet and 2.28 feet) when attempting a layup or dunk this season. Defensively, Ausar ranks fifth in field goal percentage allowed (38.8%) as the contesting defender among players to defend 400-plus shots, according to GeniusIQ. Amen ranks sixth but would be first in the league if the threshold for minimum shot contests was raised to 700 shots.

Ausar finished the regular season ranked No. 3 in defensive estimated plus-minus, trailing Alex Caruso and Kris Dunn, while Amen ranked fifth behind Victor Wembanyama.

"I want to be even more aggressive on-ball, attack more and explore my game while attacking," Ausar told ESPN. "The main thing is just exploring what I'm already great at, which is getting to the rim, finishing or getting into that mid[-range] area."

Amen is also one of two players this season to tally 80 steals and 80 blocks, along with Jaren Jackson Jr. He's the first Rocket since Hakeem Olajuwon (1998-99) to accomplish that feat.

For all the talent and basketball IQ they've shown in their first two seasons in the NBA, the Thompson twins understand they need to improve as shooters to truly thrive in the league. Until that happens, they'll continue to flex the physical tools that got them to the NBA with an emphasis on impacting games in any way possible.

"It's refreshing to see a young player lean into their strengths," Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "The draft process is weird for young players because they get picked apart and told all the things they're not good at. And sometimes their minds shift to trying to prove everyone wrong. A big part of establishing an identity as a young player in the NBA is step one, don't tell on yourself, and [step two], lean into the things that you're good at now to try to impact winning while improving the other parts of your game."

Ahead of their first-round games, the twins will send each other a routine text message: "Go kill."

"I just want to see him do well, honestly," Ausar told ESPN. "I used to get nervous watching his games. But now I don't. He plays like 40 minutes a night. So, it's like I'm just watching it as entertainment now. I expect him to do amazing."

If only one is playing, the other will be watching, knowing exactly what they're feeling in each moment out on the floor. It's not twin telepathy, but rather a matter of familiarity.

"If I'm watching, I can tell what he's feeling just by his face," Amen told ESPN. "It's not a [sixth] sense or anything. He would say the same thing. Like, he'll send a TikTok or we'll send each other a TikTok at the same time, and it's the exact same TikTok. So, there's some stuff like that. But sixth sense? Nah, you've just been around the guy your whole life, you know? Our story is basically the exact same story."

ESPN Research contributed to this report.

NEW YORK -- Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez and second baseman Jeff McNeil could be activated when the team starts a road trip Friday at Washington.

Alvarez fractured the hamate bone in his left hand during batting practice on March 8 and had surgery two days later. He began a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment on April 9.

McNeil strained his right oblique during a spring training game on March 10. His rehab stint started April 11.

"If they get through today with no issues, we expect them to be active on Friday," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Wednesday.

Luisangel Acuna, Jose Azocar or Brett Baty could be demoted to open a roster spot for McNeil.

"It's not going to be an easy decision, and that's what you want," Mendoza said. "That means guys are playing well."

Right-hander Paul Blackburn, sidelined since March 17 with right knee inflammation, was scratched from a scheduled rehab start with Class A Brooklyn on Wednesday because of a stomach bug.

"Obviously he's going to be down for a couple days," Mendoza said.

NEW YORK -- Kody Clemens, a son of seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens, was designated for assignment on Wednesday by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson said left-hander Cristopher Sanchez felt normal, one day after he was removed from a start against the New York Mets because of left forearm tightness, and will not get an MRI. Because of Thursday's off day, Sanchez could be pushed back in the rotation to get extra rest.

A 28-year-old infielder and outfielder, Clemens was dropped to make room for infielder/outfielder Weston Wilson, who was activated from the 10-day injured list after recovering from a strained left oblique that had sidelined him since spring training.

Clemens was acquired from Detroit in January 2023 and hit .220 with nine homers and 31 RBI in 97 games. He was 0 for 6 in seven games this season, appearing in six as a pinch-hitter.

Clemens has a .197 average with 14 homers and 58 RBI in four big league seasons.

Wilson, 30, hit .158 with two RBI in 10 games during a minor league rehab assignment with Class A Clearwater and Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Sanchez left Tuesday night's 5-1 loss after two innings. He threw just 33 of 58 pitches for strikes.

"He actually wanted to play catch today," Thomson said. "Last I had heard, they just want him just to rest today."

Left-hander Ranger Suarez, sidelined since spring training with lower back stiffness, is scheduled to pitch for Triple-A Lehigh Valley on Sunday in a fourth rehab outing, then could be activated. Suárez threw 59 pitches for the IronPigs on Tuesday.

"It all depends on how Sanchy feels," Thomson said.

BY ALL MEASURES, Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal throws a good slider. Particularly when complementing one of the best fastballs and changeups in the game, the pitch serves as an effective third offering with the velocity and movement profile to stand on its own. There's just one problem with it, according to the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner.

It's not the slider he wants.

That version belongs to Clayton Kershaw, the future Hall of Famer whose tight, late-breaking slider has propelled him to the best career ERA of any starting pitcher in more than a century. Skubal reveres Kershaw's slider, coveting it to the point he will spend entire offseasons fiddling with grips, finger pressure, wrist positioning and every other trick of the trade in hopes that the movement profiles spit out by a Trackman unit mirror Kershaw's.

They never do.

"I've been trying to get Kershaw's slider for four or five years and I can't get it. I just can't get it," Skubal said. "So it's frustrating. But at the same time, the beauty of the sport is you're just one cue away from getting the pitch shape you want or getting the velocity."

Every spring, dozens of pitchers arrive at camp with new pitches, eager to take the seedling they planted in a pitching lab and hope it blossoms against live hitters as the season beckons. A new pitch can alter the trajectory of a player's career, turning him into, well, someone like Skubal. New-pitch success stories are now almost a rite of spring training, the upshot of a data-driven pitching world in which players A/B test their capability to replicate the pitches they admire most before bringing them to a game already tipped in their favor.

Pitchers are perhaps the most talented and capable movers in all of sports, aligning their bodies to project a five-ounce ball 60 feet, 6 inches to a box 17 inches wide and around 24 inches tall. Their awareness of where their limbs are in space, their feel for the ball and its seams, their ability to capably manipulate everything such that they can marry velocity, spin and deception -- it's like a chef who finds perfect balance among saltiness, sweetness and spiciness.

The only taste left on Skubal's palate by his slider is bitterness. It's not just the Kershaw slider that vexes him, either.

"I've been trying to throw a sweeper for three years," Skubal said, "but I can't get the ball to sweep."

Stories like these, of the pitches that don't work out, are told far less often than the successes that permeate Pitching Ninja's sizzle reels. These failures are the banes of pitchers' existence, nemeses that invite fury and frustration.

Skubal's coaches remind their ace that he's doing just fine. The 28-year-old was the best pitcher in Major League Baseball in 2024, and so far this season his stuff is grading out even better by pitching metrics. Skubal could spend the rest of his career throwing his current slider and remain among the elite, a true ace in a game with few.

"I'm like, dude, I know. But I'm so f---ing close to getting something really good," Skubal said. "I'm just waiting for the right grip and the right cue to come through. And I'm going to get it."

COLLECTING NEW PITCHES isn't just about having a trick to pull out and impress the rest of the staff or to earn social media notoriety. It's a requisite for modern success. Gone are the days of the two-pitch starter. The three-pitch starter is an endangered species. Even four pitches are often no longer enough. With rare exceptions, the best starting pitchers in 2025 throw at least five pitches. To understand the proliferation of pitchability, one need only look at the number of pitches thrown by the 10 starters with the lowest ERAs since 2024.

Paul Skenes: 6
Skubal: 5
Hunter Greene: 4
Zack Wheeler: 6
Shota Imanaga: 5
Chris Sale: 4
Michael King: 4
Max Fried: 6
Bryce Miller: 5
Corbin Burnes: 5

It goes far beyond the best pitchers in the sport. Almost every pitcher (Burnes is the outlier) throws four- and two-seam fastballs. Each has at least one pitch that bends, and in some cases multiple. There's usually a changeup of some variety -- and often two, with different grips and movement profiles.

Seth Lugo has taken the process of adding pitches to an unmatched extreme. The Kansas City Royals right-hander estimates he throws 11 different pitches and has three unique sliders. Behind him, the six-pitch club includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Spencer Schwellenbach, Nathan Eovaldi and Sonny Gray. Among the five-pitch cohort: Cole Ragans, Framber Valdez, Logan Gilbert, Aaron Nola, Zac Gallen, Mackenzie Gore, Nick Pivetta and Garrett Crochet, who as recently as two years ago threw only a fastball and slider.

But for all of the benefits of adding new options to an arsenal, only the lucky few have done so without feeling defeated by a particular pitch.

Gilbert, a 27-year-old right-handed All-Star for the Seattle Mariners and proud member of the five-pitch club, exemplifies how the mix of pitches in a starter's repertoire is always evolving, even when it comes to the game's best. In 2021, his rookie season, Gilbert threw eight different types of pitches: four- and two-seam fastballs, a standard and knuckle curve, a slider, a cutter, a changeup and a splitter. He discarded the splitter, cutter and standard curve in his second season, only to re-add a better version of the splitter in 2023 because nothing exasperated him quite like the changeup has throughout his career.

"That's why I got rid of it," Gilbert said during spring training. "Except recently I threw one in catch play and kind of felt good, so ... I need to stop"

Unlike pitchers who will add and subtract offerings during the middle of the season, Gilbert believes the winter and six weeks of spring training are the time to lock in pitches for the season ahead. After reintroducing the traditional curve and cutter in 2024, he settled on a more limited arsenal for 2025, leaning heavily on his four-seamer, splitter and slider while feathering in curves and throwing a few two-seamers each game.

"I'm naturally black and white, logical, scientific, and that's kind of how I create pitches. But that's offseason work," Gilbert said. "When you're on the mound, when you're in the game, you kind of switch back to be able to [be] the artist, so to speak. I work with [Mariners mental skills coach Adam Bernero] a lot on that. It's about feel. It's about letting go. It's about things that you can't quantify that kind of sound made up, but that's what makes me a really good pitcher. Probably other guys, too. It's not that when you're out there you're thinking about how do I throw this sweeper with as much break as possible. That's behind the scenes. And the good guys, I feel like, can switch back and forth between that.

"You start leaning into this stuff -- like the process, not the result -- and letting go and getting rid of expectations, and stuff like that actually makes you a better pitcher. It sounds so great, but in practice it's such a hard thing to do. It's great until somebody gets a double and it's even harder, but you have to commit to it beforehand and stay committed to it."

Sticking with something that can potentially lead to suboptimal results while being perfected is a much less difficult proposition for an established major league star than it is for a young pitcher trying to climb an organizational ladder while optimizing his pitch mix for future performance.

When Minnesota Twins starter Joe Ryan was drafted by Tampa Bay in 2018, he asked a scout what allowed Brendan McKay, the Rays' first-round pick the year before, to move through the organization so quickly. Simple, Ryan was told: McKay's fastball was so good that lower-level hitters couldn't touch it, so McKay just carved up lineups with it. That sounded good to Ryan. Hitters struggled with his deceptive four-seamer, thrown from a relatively low slot and with well-above-average backspin. He threw it about 90% of the time. But the Rays' farm director at the time, Mitch Lukevics, warned Ryan that he would need a greater repertoire as he ascended in the organization, so in his next start, Ryan threw a curveball that got obliterated for a three-run home run. His High-A pitching coach, Doc Watson, told Ryan he should have a new game plan: "Throw f---ing heaters."

Ryan kept putting off the curveball as he learned other pitches. He was told he needed a changeup to move to Double-A, and he developed one within 10 days. He picked up a sweeper, ditched it at the behest of the Rays and unleashed it again after he was traded to Minnesota. He scrapped the changeup for a splitter in 2023, and it's now his second-best pitch. The curveball remains his white whale.

"But I threw one the other day and it was the best curveball I've ever thrown," Ryan said. "I'm like, all right, maybe I can do this. But if you have a sweeper, split, short slider that's hard, sinker, four-seam -- I don't know where the curve works in the equation as much. If you ... can just sit on one pitch the whole time, it's going to be a really tough game. But if you can go in there and just mix the whole time and you have good s---, it's going to be a really tough day for them."

FOR MORE THAN a decade, Kenta Maeda could not throw a split-fingered fastball. Splitters are a trademark for most of the best Japanese pitchers, but when Maeda tried to throw one, it didn't tumble. To hitters, it looked like a batting-practice fastball.

Maeda sought advice from around the game on how to properly throw a splitter. He asked Hideo Nomo, the godfather of modern Japanese pitching, and Masahiro Tanaka, whose splitter led him to a pair of All-Star Games with the New York Yankees. Maeda never worried too much about his lack of a splitter because his circle changeup was plenty good.

In 2018, his third year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he lost the feel for his change and started to scramble. Without a change, he needed a split. "It was time for me to maneuver that pitch," said Maeda, the 36-year-old Detroit Tigers right-hander who almost always has a ball in his hand when he's sitting on the bench. Most pitchers are tinkerers by trade, fiddling with grips and pressures, trying to find something that's comfortable. Rather than copy his countrymen, who jam the ball between their index and middle fingers to throw a splitter, Maeda conceived of a splitter with some characteristics from his circle change. He put his index and middle fingers together, splitting the ring finger.

"Then I started playing with that pitch during catch play," Maeda said, "and here we are."

Six years later, Maeda still throws the split. It's the sort of thing that gives Skubal hope. He saw how a new pitch can be an immediate success this winter, when San Francisco Giants left-hander Robbie Ray texted asking Skubal how he gripped his changeup. Skubal sent photos and video to explain the pitch to Ray, a reflection of the pitching fraternity in which trade secrets are shared regularly, even among opponents.

Ray cottoned to the changeup and is throwing it nearly 13% of the time this season, the highest percentage since his rookie season in 2014. Ray's success with it is a reminder of how difficult learning a new pitch can be, because a far more accomplished pitcher has spent nearly two decades trying to find a change upon which he can rely. For the entirety of his 18-year career, Kershaw has entered spring training in search of a usable changeup, only to throw it a dozen or so times a year. Sometimes a pitch isn't meant to be.

Skubal isn't there yet with his slider. Still, he's a competitor, a perfectionist and a realist, so if he couldn't land Kershaw's slider, he figured, maybe an alternative would work. During his interactions with Ray, Skubal asked about his slider, which helped Ray capture the AL Cy Young in 2021.

"He showed me his grip, showed me his cues, everything," Skubal said. "I tried it. I'm like, dude, it doesn't work. But it works for him. I love his slider. It's a really good pitch. It didn't work out in my favor, worked out in his, but maybe it'll work again. I'll revisit it."

In one scene, Alcaraz talks tearfully about the moment he smashed his racquet after a second-round loss to Gael Monfils at the Cincinnati Open.

"The fact of the matter is, I wasn't mentally strong enough to overcome all the stress," he says.

"I didn't know if I needed to quit or if I was losing my passion."

Alcaraz also speaks about the impact of his 2023 French Open semi-final defeat by Novak Djokovic, after which he decided to go on holiday to Ibiza.

"I wanted to go there basically to just get wasted," he says.

"I made the most of it because I knew I might not get another three days like that. When I got back, of course, I won Queen's and Wimbledon.

"I'm not saying partying helped me win, but taking that time off was good for me."

Alcaraz returned to Ibiza last year, against advice from his agent Albert Molina Lopez and coach Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Soon afterwards, his Queen's title defence was ended in the second round by Britain's Jack Draper - although Alcaraz went on to beat Djokovic in the Wimbledon final later that month.

"We all knew amongst ourselves that he shouldn't have gone to Ibiza," says Ferrero.

The former world number one, who previously coached Alexander Zverev, appears frustrated with his protege at times.

"We are here to create the greatest player because of his abilities and opportunities," he says. "But if he's not that determined, [if] he's OK with being ranked number 15 in the world, then we'll lower our expectations.

"But knowing the way I am, I think it would be very hard for me to keep working with him."

In the final scenes, Alcaraz wonders whether he has "the mindset" to "become the greatest player in history".

"Well, right now, I don't know," he says. "I'm still young, I have a lot ahead of me, but from what I've lived so far, I definitely prefer to put happiness before any kind of accomplishment.

"Being happy is an accomplishment and happiness isn't always easy to find."