CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- There's a part of Kemba Walker that wants to play his entire career with the Charlotte Hornets. There's another part that wants to compete for an NBA championship before he's too old.

With the Hornets not ready to compete with teams such as the Golden State Warriors, the 28-year-old Walker enters this offseason having to make a choice between loyalty and chasing a ring.

And he's not ready to do that just yet.

"I have no feeling right now, I don't know," Walker said of his impending decision in free agency this summer. "Honestly, I don't know what to expect. I guess it's a lot of different emotions bottled up into one. I'm not sure. I don't know."

The three-time All-Star point guard is expected to be a hot commodity when free agency opens July 1.

He's coming off his most productive season statistically, averaging a career-high 25.6 points per game to go along with 5.9 assists and 4.4 rebounds. He was selected as an All-Star Game starter for the first time and has put himself in the running for the All-NBA team.

Walker's predicament is that if the Hornets re-sign him to a max contract, they won't have many pieces to put around him -- which means the team could continue to muddle in mediocrity as it has done for the first eight seasons in Charlotte. The Hornets have been to the postseason only twice during that time and have never gotten out of the first round.

Signing with another team could give him the opportunity to compete for the championship he so desperately craves.

"I mean, obviously I do want to be competitive because I want to be able to play in the playoffs," Walker said. "So I want to think that would have some influence" on my decision.

At media day last September, an excited Walker sounded committed to re-signing with the Hornets, saying he "wanted to create something" in Charlotte. Walker said Thursday that "nothing has changed" in that regard, but his enthusiasm has clearly waned over the past seven months.

"I want to win," Walker said. "I want to win."

PARKER'S FUTURE

Tony Parker said he's "50-50" on whether he will return for a 19th NBA season after his streak of 17 straight playoff appearances was snapped.

"I don't want to play on a rebuilding team," said Parker, who is under contract for $5.25 million next season. "I want to play for a team that's fighting to make the playoffs at least."

Sacramento Kings general manager Vlade Divac has fired coach Dave Joerger after the team's best season since 2005-06, it was announced Thursday.

"After evaluating the season, I determined that we need to move in a different direction in order to take us to the next level," Divac said in a statement. "On behalf of the entire Kings organization, I want to thank Dave for his contributions to our team and I wish him all the best."

Despite Joerger engineering an improbable 39-win season, Divac is using the muscle of his new contract extension through the 2022-23 season to consolidate power around him, league sources said.

Divac fired assistant general manager Brandon Williams earlier Thursday morning, sources said, and planned to meet with players after firing Joerger.

What makes Joerger's dismissal confusing to many inside and outside the Kings' world is simply this: He transformed Sacramento's style of play into one of the league's fastest, most exciting brands of basketball, and point guard De'Aaron Fox has developed into one of the NBA's bright young stars.

Sacramento averaged 114.2 points per game this season, which ranked ninth in the league. It was an increase of 15.4 points after the Kings finished last in the NBA at 98.8 points per game during the 2017-18 season.

Tension between management and Joerger regarding playing time for certain young players and relationship strains impacted Divac's decision, sources said. Still, most around the NBA believed the team's rapid improvement under Joerger and significant overperformance based on preseason expectations would have forced the organization to consider a contract extension.

Joerger, who has a 98-148 record without a playoff appearance in his three seasons with the Kings, had one year remaining on his contract. Prior to joining the Kings, he coached the Memphis Grizzlies for three seasons. He has an overall NBA coaching record of 245-247.

The Kings, in announcing Divac's new four-year deal, praised the GM for helping in the team's rebuild.

"Vlade has been vital to what we are building here," owner Vivek Ranadive said in a statement. "Throughout his entire career, Vlade is someone who has always made those around him better, both on and off the court."

As parts of a seismic organizational overhaul, the Memphis Grizzlies fired coach J.B. Bickerstaff and reassigned general manager Chris Wallace Thursday.

Wallace and vice president of basketball operations John Hollinger were demoted to a scouting and senior advisory roles, respectively.

The Grizzlies are elevating Jason Wexler to president, overseeing basketball and business operations.

Assistant GM/team counsel Zach Kleiman is elevating to executive VP of basketball operations, league sources said. Zleiman will run the day-to-day operations for the Grizzlies. He had taken an increasing role in basketball operations in recent years and elevates now to a prominent position in organization.

The franchise is planning to add experienced front office executives to the organization.

"In order to put our team on the path to sustainable success, it was necessary to change our approach to basketball operations," team chairman Robert Pera said in a statement. "I look forward to a re-energized front office and fresh approach to Memphis Grizzlies basketball under new leadership, while retaining the identity and values that have distinguished our team."

Pera went on to thank Wallace and Hollinger for their past contributions to success and "look forward to their contributions to our future ones."

Bickerstaff had completed his first full season on the job after taking over as interim coach in the 2018-19 season. The organization had been complimentary over his handling of a difficult season of injuries, trades and roster turnover.

Wallace replaced Jerry West as Grizzlies GM in 2007, leading a renaissance of the organization that included acquiring franchise pillars Marc Gasol and Mike Conley. The Grizzlies reached the playoffs eight straight years before missing in each of the last two seasons.

Bickerstaff, 40, was 48-97 in two seasons with the Grizzlies, never making the playoffs. His only other NBA hea-coaching experience was as interim in Houston in 2015-16 when he went 37-34.

He is the son of longtime NBA coach Bernie Bickerstaff.

THE NBA REGULAR season is finally over, and if the signals emanating from locker rooms over the past six months offer any indication, the end couldn't come soon enough. The league wasn't without its feel-good stories -- the ascendant Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets, Luka 'n' Trae -- but 2018-19 might be best remembered as the NBA's winter of discontent.

The league and those who love it often celebrate the dominance of juicy NBA storylines, but even commissioner Adam Silver conceded a few weeks ago that buzz isn't an end unto itself.

"At some point it does matter what they're saying," Silver said.

What they've been saying about the NBA for the better part of the year is that many of the most talented players and charismatic teams suffer from chronic unhappiness. Maybe, as Silver implied, it's a palpable anxiety driven by social media. Or maybe it's the burden of expectation that comes with stardom in a player-driven league. Maybe this restlessness has always existed, shielded from public scrutiny in an era where the moods of players, coaches and executives weren't so easily conveyed.

It's not as if the pressures of a high-intensity environment caught the NBA by surprise. For years, long before Twitter or the proliferation of free-agency-as-reality-show, smart teams have emphasized chemistry and workplace culture as an antidote to the egos, media glare and competing interests that can derail a perfectly good roster of basketball players. But if culture was supposed to stand as the great buffer to the noise, the past 12 months have served as a profound reminder of its limits in a league where individual stardom carries so much weight.

As the postseason gets underway, the undercurrents that exist in Boston, Golden State, Toronto, Philadelphia and San Antonio -- all places where a premium has been placed on the construction and maintenance of team culture -- will be tested. If that culture has value, now would be a good time to see it activated.

WHEN THE BOSTON Celtics hired Brad Stevens in 2013 to be their new head coach, the NBA was in the midst of its great cultural revolution. League executives had embraced many of the tropes of modern management theory and popular behavioral science, as well as lessons from books such as "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," "Grit," "Mindset" and "Thinking, Fast and Slow."

No team embodied this movement like the San Antonio Spurs. Though they had watched Ray Allen rip a championship from their grasp a few weeks earlier, the franchise had forged an identity over nearly two decades based around values such as trust and common sacrifice. Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker were years past their primes, and Kawhi Leonard was a 21-year-old averaging fewer than 12 points per game, yet the Spurs had plowed through the Western Conference on the strength of "The Spurs Way." As more stars joined forces to build a few select superteams, the Spurs provided an empowering template for the rest of the league:

Any team in any market could overcome a talent deficit if it subscribed to the right principles and inspired its players to be the best versions of themselves.

Stevens arrived in Boston as the avatar of the moment. At a school with an undergraduate enrollment of just over 4,000, he had established "The Butler Way." Humble, thoughtful and wholly committed to his craft, Stevens exuded calm and had a keen understanding that high-level basketball was about the players. At the height of the cultural revolution, he was the perfect candidate to cultivate a sustainable value system in Boston. And as an affirmation to the import and scope of building a culture, the Celtics furnished Stevens with a six-year contract, saying: For the near term, worry more about the holistic task, less about wins and losses.

Culture triumphed in the NBA for the next couple of years. In June 2014, the Spurs avenged their Finals loss to the Miami Heat in a series that was a pass-happy exhibition of how team prevails over talent. That fall, Steve Kerr arrived in Oakland, helping a middling playoff team vault to greatness with an ethic of joy. San Antonio disciple Mike Budenholzer won 60 games with the Atlanta Hawks without a top-20 player in the midst of an ownership scandal, while the Spurs chugged along, winning another 128 games in Duncan's final two seasons.

In Boston, Stevens delivered as promised: A scrappy, young Celtics team without much star power took shape, and a culture of work and selflessness was laid down. Each year, talent was added to the roster in the form of draft picks and strategic free-agent signings, and consequently, wins were added to the Celtics' record. Despite a personnel overhaul, Boston spent all of one year in postseason exile. The singular takeaway: Nothing accelerates rebuilding like culture.

Today, all of that seems quaint. To the cynic, a quick scan of the NBA could suggest that the primacy of organizational culture looks more like a fleeting fad of the late-Obama era.

Stevens' team in Boston -- picked by many to win the Eastern Conference this season -- has been embattled since the opening days of the campaign. Kyrie Irving couldn't help himself from calling out younger teammates, while Stevens has openly questioned the team's connectedness. In Oakland, Kevin Durant's pending free agency and his larger unhappiness has rendered Team Joy utterly joyless for a while now. San Antonio, the league's leading cultural institution, was effectively forced to ship out its next generational talent in an ugly stalemate of lost trust.

There are other examples on the periphery: Another Spurs alumnus, Brett Brown, has spent five years devoted to his cultural blueprint in Philadelphia, but it's uncertain whether the 76ers' tinderbox will be resilient enough to withstand the combustibility of its roster. In Portland, Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and coach Terry Stotts are all culture-first personalities, but if the Trail Blazers bow out in the first round of the playoffs this month, what exactly is the added value of that culture? Ditto the Utah Jazz.

For San Antonio, Golden State and Boston, the reliance on a well-honed culture came up against the allure of star talent.

In 2015, the Spurs beat out suitors in glam destinations such as New York and Los Angeles for free agent LaMarcus Aldridge. The Spurs knew Aldridge, who could be sullen, wasn't exactly a culture vulture, yet they determined that the presence of Duncan and the strength of the cultural foundation could morph Aldridge into a Spur.

For Golden State, the gambit was far simpler: Durant, one of the NBA's most prolific individual performers, wanted to join its ranks in 2016 after the Warriors lost the Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Adding a talent of that magnitude to a culture that strong would produce compounding effects that could make the Warriors the greatest team in the sport's history.

The Celtics encountered a similar opportunity when Irving was made available in 2017. And like the Spurs and Warriors, the Celtics made a quick determination when presented with the question: Do we want to screw with our culture?

For a championship point guard with the finest shot-making skills, we quite certainly do.

Just as the NBA convinced itself that culture was the silver bullet that could recast the fortunes of a franchise, these organizations believed their elite cultures could absorb any player with a desire to win, no matter how prickly. That's what the culture is for -- and the better the player, the more steadfast that belief.

By every account, there remains a pervasive culture in San Antonio, the product of five championships, leadership at the top, the legacy of Duncan and the front office's taste in basketball players. However strong that culture, it couldn't persuade Leonard to want to stay. And less than five years after schooling the league with the pass, the Spurs are now a team that gets the ball in to Aldridge on the left block more than a dozen times per game, plays an iso-heavy half-court game and ranks in the bottom 10 in defensive efficiency.

Stephen Curry personified the culture of joy in Golden State, until he personified the last remnants of it. These days, the spirit of the Warriors more resembles Durant -- petulant, defensive and just plain unhappy. In that vein, the Celtics have been consumed by Irving's public education in leadership and, like Durant, the looming decision he will make this July in free agency.

What happened? As is usually the case, there's no one thing: Duncan retired; the Warriors grew bored; maintaining something is never as inspiring as building it; expectations can challenge even the most capable people. At the same time, Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford didn't start believing the wrong things. Curry didn't go rogue, and Kerr didn't start valuing pettiness over empathy. Stevens didn't forget how to comport himself, and Al Horford didn't wake up in September and become indifferent to team basketball.

More likely, these organizations stumbled into a prevailing reality in the NBA: No culture can fully absorb an incoming superstar. The Heat came closest. The most starched, buttoned-up culture in the league bent to accommodate LeBron James, who thrives in chaos, but never broke en route to a pair of titles. Yet the present-day landscape of the empowered NBA superstar generally means that a team's culture is secondary to that guy's identity, which is logical because talent drives the value of the NBA product. Post-LeBron, the Heat have reclaimed the purity of the culture, but despite routinely overachieving in the regular season, they've won just one playoff series over the past five seasons.

The surprising Clippers offer the sharpest contrast with their current roster composition. During the Lob City era, the Clippers were a team beset by iffy chemistry due, in large part, to a constellation of big egos. Today, the Clippers are the model of the unselfish, love-to-come-to-work collective. Did coach Doc Rivers miraculously transform into the league's most inspiring minister of culture -- Ubuntu 2.0 -- or did he just skillfully preside over a group of agreeable players, none of whom with a claim on stardom and an agenda that often accompanies that status?

An intentional set of values is a very real accelerant for success, and it's certainly better to have a positive culture than not have it. The commitment of Duncan, Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki to the empowerment of teammates and staffers was crucial to sculpting championship identities for their respective organizations. But a culture can't make people stay, make them happy or even make them change. It's a series of philosophical suggestions for helping the collective thrive, but suggestions are never compulsory.

If the Celtics crater in the postseason under the force of a team with players who didn't fully trust one another, it would be misguided to assign much of the blame to Stevens for that underachievement -- and the tension in Boston would almost certainly be heightened without him. It also follows that Stevens has possibly received a bit too much credit in past seasons for his temperament and cultural wherewithal.

No head coach can draw up a scheme that will completely foil an opposing superstar on the court; talent of a certain kind is simply unstoppable in the NBA. Asking Stevens, Popovich, Kerr, their front offices or their superstar teammates to spawn a culture that can stand up to the impulses and frustrations of a Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard or any other great player is just as unreasonable. Culture should be a salve, but it can't be a cure.

Washington Nationals reliever Trevor Rosenthal retired a batter for the first time this season on Wednesday night after allowing the first 10 he faced to reach safely.

Rosenthal came into the game in the ninth inning with the Nationals leading the Philadelphia Phillies 15-0. He walked Rhys Hoskins to open the inning before striking out Andrew Knapp. Rosenthal then walked Odubel Herrera and Cesar Hernandez to load the bases, gave up a run on a groundout by Maikel Franco, but retired Aaron Altherr on a flyout to end the game.

Rosenthal entered the game with an ERA of infinity but lowered that to 72.00 on Wednesday.

"I felt the same I've been feeling, just trying to handle the emotions of being back and the early struggles," Rosenthal told reporters after the game, according to The Washington Post. "My teammates have been incredibly supportive of me. It's been like a family, like everybody wants me to do really well. So I try to embrace that and keep working hard, and that's all I can pretty much do."

Rosenthal, 28, signed a one-year deal with the Nationals this offseason after missing the 2018 season following Tommy John surgery.

"It'll all work out in the end. It's just about learning from it as you go through it, and then eventually, on the backside, I could help anyone else out if they were going through something similar," he told reporters.

Before Rosenthal, the last pitcher to have each of the first 10 batters he faced in a season reach via hit, walk or hit-by-pitch was David Lundquist of the Padres in 2002, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

In his five appearances this season, Rosenthal has allowed 8 earned runs, giving up 4 hits and 7 walks.

The former St. Louis Cardinals closer has a 3.20 ERA in 333 appearances and has 121 saves.

Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw will get his first start of the season Monday, taking the mound at home against the Cincinnati Reds, manager Dave Roberts said Thursday.

"He feels good. We feel good about it," Roberts said. "He's chomping at the bit."

Kershaw has been sidelined since early in spring training with left shoulder inflammation.

The left-hander made his second rehab start on Tuesday, throwing 81 pitches -- 59 for strikes -- over six innings for Double-A Tulsa.

Roberts said he does not anticipate any restrictions for Kershaw on Monday.

"If things are going well as far as where he's built up, absolutely," Roberts said. "We also have to bake in the intensity of a major-league game. We've done what we can to put him in the best chance to help himself and help us and obviously not put the bullpen in jeopardy as far as his workload."

Kershaw's return is welcome news to the Dodgers, who put lefty starter Hyun-Jin Ryu on the injured list with a strained left groin. Left-hander Rich Hill is also on the injured list with a knee injury.

Second baseman Dee Gordon, with a sixth-inning blast on Thursday, pushed the Seattle Mariners into the record books for the longest season-opening home run streak in MLB history.

Gordon's solo shot to right field extended the Mariners' streak to 15 games with a home run to open this season, surpassing the mark set by the 2002 Cleveland Indians.

It was Gordon's first homer of the season.

Every position player has homered for the Mariners, who lead the AL West -- and the majors -- with a 12-2 record.

Seattle leads the American League with 34 home runs and a .295 average through 14 games.

ATLANTA -- All-Star second baseman Ozzie Albies and the Atlanta Braves have agreed to a $35 million, seven-year contract, which includes a pair of team options that could make it worth $45 million for nine seasons.

The agreement announced Thursday supersedes a one-year contract signed last month that called for a $575,000 salary in the major leagues, $20,000 above the minimum.

Albies, 22, gets $1 million in each of the next two seasons, $3 million in 2021, $5 million in 2022 and $7 million each in 2023, '24 and '25. Atlanta has a $7 million option for 2026 with a $4 million buyout, and if that is exercised, the Braves have a $7 million option for 2027 with no buyout.

Albies is hitting .364 with one homer and two RBIs in 11 games this season after batting .261 with 40 doubles, 24 homers, 72 RBIs, 14 steals and 105 runs last year.

He would have been eligible for arbitration after the 2020 season and for free agency after the 2023 season.

BALTIMORE -- Dave Campbell didn't even know he was in a slump.

Well, he knew, but he had no idea about the magnitude of it. The year was 1973, and Campbell was in the midst of an 0-for-45 odyssey that spanned three different teams and, until this week, was tied for the second-longest hitless streak in major league history.

It started in San Diego, where Campbell was an infielder for the Padres. It followed him to St. Louis, where he was traded in June of that year, and then to Houston, where he was dealt in August. Through it all, Campbell was clueless. It wasn't until 2011, when current Brewers manager Craig Counsell went through an 0-for-45 of his own during his final season as a player, that Campbell discovered just how historic his slump was.

"I only learned about it after a couple calls from some buddies at ESPN," says Campbell, who transitioned to the broadcast booth after his playing days. "Nobody was detailing those types of stats [back then]."

Unlike Campbell, today's players don't have the luxury of ignorance. Just ask Chris Davis.

At the Orioles' home opener last week, fans at Camden Yards were merciless in their treatment of Davis. Knowing full well he hadn't recorded a hit since the middle of September, they booed him when he ran down the orange carpet during pregame intros. They booed him in his first at-bat and each AB after that, getting progressively saltier each time. When he was lifted for a pinch hitter in the eighth inning, the crowd gave a sarcastic standing ovation.

"It's not something I was really expecting. It was tough," Davis said after the game. "At the same time, I heard it a lot last year, and rightfully so. I've said it before, I'll say it again -- I understand the frustration. Nobody's more frustrated than I am."

Davis was so frustrated that at the end of the home opener, which the Orioles lost 8-4 to the Yankees, he tossed his batting gloves -- the brand-new pair he'd busted out expressly for the occasion -- into the dugout trash can. When he got back into the clubhouse, instead of putting the pants of his uniform in the laundry basket like players do after every single game, he threw those in the trash, too.

Four days later, with Davis on the verge of setting a new record for futility, the feeling at Camden Yards was completely different. Before his first at-bat Monday, when Davis lined out to right field to make it 0 for his last 45, the crowd gave him another standing O -- but this time in a show of support. Before his second AB, when he lined out to left field, they did it again. And then again before his third trip, when he hit another liner to left to make it 0-for-47. He'd make out twice more to run the record streak to 0-for-49. (After flying out in his lone at-bat Wednesday, and going 0-for-3 on Thursday, the streak is now 0-for-53 and counting.)

Maybe it was because the intimate gathering of 6,585 (the smallest paying crowd in the stadium's history) consisted only of die-hards, the kind that bleed black and orange and relish the opportunity to watch a midweek April game against the Oakland A's. Maybe it was because the fans realized beating a guy when he's down -- and let's face it, hardly anyone in baseball has ever been more down than Chris Davis -- is just plain mean. Whatever the reason, on the night Baltimore's first baseman broke the record for the longest hitless streak ever by a position player, the fans that witnessed it gave him nothing but love.

"It was a little unexpected, after Opening Day and most of the season last year, but it was awesome," Davis says. "I hear the people every night, cheering for me, encouraging me, the guys and gals that sit down closer to the field, the ones that are more consistent in attendance. I hear the encouraging people trying to pick me up, and I've always been very appreciative of it. Unfortunately, I feel like a few people who decide to boo, or say whatever they may say, are ruining it for a lot of people. I've been here long enough, I've played for the Orioles long enough to know what kind of fan base we have, and to know that they support their players through good and bad. And that thought has kept me in a good state of mind throughout this whole thing."

These days, the booing isn't what bothers Davis most. Instead, it's the negative attention that detracts from what his young teammates are accomplishing on the field.

"It takes away from so many positive things that we're doing," says Davis, who didn't speak after Monday's record-setter, a 12-4 rout over the A's in which he was the only Orioles starter who failed to reach base. "We won the game and I went 0-for-5, and I knew that the media was going to want to talk about it. For me, that was just such an unprofessional thing to do, to sit there and talk about my own personal circumstances when we had so many things to be excited and encouraged about as a ballclub. I want these guys to enjoy playing in the big leagues. I want them to enjoy playing for the Orioles, playing for the city of Baltimore. I want them to understand that it's a privilege to be able to put on this uniform night in and night out. I want them to do as much as they can to have the best outcome possible, and I don't think it's fair for me to bring all the baggage that I have with me right now and dump it on those guys."

Davis and his baggage are standing in the tunnel that leads from the first-base dugout to the home clubhouse at Camden Yards. It's Day 3 of the A's series, and even though Oakland is sending righty Frankie Montas to the mound, Davis will be riding the pine for a second straight day. The decision to rest him is a conscious one made by rookie manager Brandon Hyde. He wants to give his slugger, who's taken early batting practice with hitting coach Don Long each of the past two days, a little time to work on some mechanical things. It's not a full-on furlough like last June, when Davis went 10 days without playing. It's just a little breather.

"I don't want to take a sabbatical again," says Davis, who ended up pinch hitting in the ninth inning of Wednesday's 10-3 loss and flied out to the warning track in center field. "I don't want to leave and not play for a week or two weeks. And [Hyde] understands that part. But at the same time, he wants me to continue to work and he wants to give me an opportunity to be successful. I think that's encouraging, to say the least, to hear from your manager."

The mini-holiday is merely the latest in a series of machinations intended to reverse the fortunes of a slugger who, when he's right, is one of the most dangerous left-handed bats in baseball. Problem is, it has been forever and a day since Davis was right. In three-plus seasons since signing a seven-year, $161 million contract with the Orioles in January 2016, his .199 average is the worst in baseball among players with at least 1,000 at-bats. The 36 percent strikeout rate (third highest) would be overlooked for a guy with game-changing power, except Davis doesn't seem to have that anymore: His homer totals the last four years are 47, 38, 26 and 16. And now, to make matters worse, he's hitless in 2019.

"It's going to be an ongoing, very intentional thing," says Long of the tee work and soft toss he has done with Davis during their early BP sessions.

Asked whether he thinks Davis' issues are more physical or mental at this point, Long hedges: "One can lead to the other. For any hitter, if your mind is not in the right spot, it's going to impact what you do physically. And if you don't feel like you're in the right position physically, it can affect how you react mentally and emotionally. It's such a hard thing to do. And it's so easy to not remember when you've done it well. It's easy to react to what just happened, to your most recent games. So we try and keep all our guys connected to their best."

Even though Davis' best was very good once upon a time, he's so far removed from it now that the airwaves -- both locally and nationally -- have become flooded with talk of how the Orioles could and/or should handle him.

One thought is to send him to the minors to ease the pressure. But because Davis is out of minor league options, the O's would have to designate him for assignment, a process that first requires him to pass through the waivers process. If any one of the other 29 teams were to claim Davis, he would immediately become a part of that team's 40-man roster. Of course, he would also become a part of that team's payroll, and the odds of any club taking on Davis' nine-figure contract -- via waivers or a trade -- are roughly equivalent to his batting average through Baltimore's first 13 games (um, zero).

Whether it's passing through waivers and going to the minors, or spending some time at the Orioles' spring training complex in Sarasota, Florida, to work out the kinks -- an idea Davis says new general manager Mike Elias proposed during a meeting toward the end of March -- Davis is game.

"If I'm struggling to the point where I feel like it's going to be a repeat of last year, I'm absolutely open to anything," says the former All-Star who hit .168 last season, setting a record for the lowest average ever by a qualified hitter. "I want to be successful. I know I have four more years here. I want to make the most of 'em."

Of course, it's entirely possible Davis doesn't spend four more years in Baltimore. Crazy though it might seem, it's possible the O's could just flat-out release him. Doing so would allow young slugger Trey Mancini, the team's best offensive player, to move from left field back to his natural position at first base. That, in turn, would open up an outfield spot the rebuilding Birds could use to give more playing time to younger big leaguers (like Joey Rickard and Dwight Smith Jr.) or to take a look at minor-league prospects (like Austin Hays and Yusniel Diaz).

As crazy as the idea of releasing Davis sounds, it's not without precedent. This past winter, the Blue Jays released Troy Tulowitzki, even though they still owed him $38 million. In 2016, both Carl Crawford (Dodgers) and Jose Reyes (Rockies) were dropped with more than $30 million remaining on their respective contracts. At the time of their release, Tulowitzki and Crawford were 34 years old, and Reyes was 33. In other words, all three were men of a certain age. So too is the 33-year-old Davis. The difference is, cutting Davis, who earns $23 million per year over the next four seasons, would cost way more. But it's a sunk cost: Release or no release, the Orioles are into him for another $92 million.

The decision for Peter Angelos to invest heavily in Davis three years ago was an emotional one. Even though Angelos has since ceded control of the team to sons John and Lou, it would be difficult for ownership to cut ties. Unlike Crawford, Reyes and Tulowitzki, all of whom were relatively new to the teams that released them, Davis has deep ties to the city in which he plays. He has spent eight years in Baltimore and helped resurrect a moribund franchise that made the playoffs three times in his first five seasons there. Not to mention, the Birds are still holding out hope that the Chris Davis of Seasons Future and the Chris Davis of Seasons Past are the same.

"I really believe that he's dedicating himself not just to get back to where he was, but to be better than he was," Long says. "That's a big statement, but that's how we have to think. We have to think that there's greatness accessible to him."

British record-holder to face world-class line-up in the 100m at the Müller Anniversary Games in London

WITH 100 days to go before the Müller Anniversary Games, organisers have announced a red-hot women’s 100 metres field for the London meeting.

British record-holder Dina Asher-Smith will take on Marie-Josée Ta Lou of the Ivory coast, Elaine Thompson of Jamaica and Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands – a quartet who own a combined 18 Olympic and world medals.

Thompson is the reigning Olympic 100m and 200m champion and Schippers is a two-time world 200m champion, while Ta Lou was world No.1 at the distance in 2018 during a season that saw her lose only once – in Zurich – in 12 major races.

Fresh from her exploits in Berlin last summer where she won European golds over 100m, 200m and 4x100m, Asher-Smith will relish taking on some of the quickest women on the planet when the 100m takes place on Sunday July 21 at this year’s edition of the event.

Thompson is the athlete with the quickest 100m PB of 10.70 – the fifth quickest time ever recorded – and the Jamaican will head into the summer season aiming to recapture the form that saw her win a historic double sprint gold at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.