At this time last week, the Seattle Seahawks were alone atop the NFC West at 4-3.

But by Sunday night, they could find themselves in last place. A loss to the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field would assure as much regardless of whether the Arizona Cardinals win or lose on the road against the Chicago Bears.

Such is life in the NFL's tightest division.

Entering Week 9, the Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers and Seahawks are all tied at 4-4, and the Rams are just half a game behind at 3-4. Arizona holds the tiebreaker by virtue of its 2-0 start in NFC West play. The Rams-Seahawks game on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, Fox) is the first of eight NFC West matchups to close the season.

Elsewhere in the NFC, the gap between first and last place is 3 games in the East, two in the North and four in the South. The top and bottom spots in all four AFC divisions are separated by 3 to 5 games.

Why is the NFC West closer than the others? Among the reasons, the 49ers -- a Super Bowl favorite to start the season -- have been plagued by injuries, and the Cardinals have kicked three game-winning field goals.

Here's a breakdown of where things stand with the Seahawks, 49ers, Rams and Cardinals, plus how the NFC West might be won. -- Brady Henderson

Arizona Cardinals (4-4)

FPI's overall ranking: No. 21
Chances to win division: 32.9%
Chances to make the playoffs: 38.2%
Next five games: vs. Chicago Bears, vs. New York Jets, BYE, at Seattle, at Minnesota Vikings

Assess the quarterback: Kyler Murray is playing some of the best football of his career -- ranking third in the NFL in QBR (74.4) -- thanks to an intimate understanding of the Cardinals' scheme, a clean bill of health and both a comfortability and happiness with the coaches and players around him. Now in Year 6, he has faced a majority of what defenses are throwing at him.

Cardinals' X factor: WR Marvin Harrison Jr. When the fourth overall pick gets going, he -- as the kids say -- eats. Harrison, who had 26 catches for 411 yards and five touchdowns, has the capability to make any touch into a scoring play and change the direction of a game. His third-quarter touchdown against the Dolphins in Week 8 catalyzed Arizona's final two scoring drives in the victory. When he can string together a series of catches, it opens up the offense for everyone else.

Biggest concern going forward: Consistency. The Cardinals have found a bit of a rhythm with back-to-back wins for the first time since 2021. Arizona needs to fix some persistent issues -- for example, improving their third-down defense, which ranks last in the NFL -- or it will be at risk of getting passed in the division.

Reason for optimism: When the Cardinals' offense is clicking, it's as good as any offense in the NFL. It can deploy a mix of run -- between James Conner and Murray -- and pass that keeps a defense on its toes because of the unknown, namely whether Murray will run or throw. Arizona has shown the ability to score points quickly or eat the clock with an offense that can do it all from every angle.

Biggest divisional game left on schedule: There are really two. The first is Week 12 at Seattle because that's the next one and with the division so close right now, that game can add some separation in the tiebreakers with wins over all three of their NFC West rivals. But the most important one very well might end up being the last game of the season, when the 49ers visit the Cardinals. The division could come down to that.

Key player expected back from injury: Rookie defensive lineman Darius Robinson. The second of Arizona's two first-round picks is expected back in the next week or two from a calf injury that has sidelined him this season. His presence will give the Cardinals an instant boost on a defensive front that has been hampered by injuries, especially at edge rush, which is down two of its top three options. -- Josh Weinfuss

Los Angeles Rams (3-4)

FPI's overall ranking: No. 18
Chances to win division: 15.5%
Chances to make the playoffs: 19.5%
Next five games: at Seattle, vs. Miami Dolphins, at New England Patriots, vs. Philadelphia Eagles, at New Orleans Saints

Assess the quarterback: The Rams feel great about quarterback Matthew Stafford, who had his best game of the season Thursday night when he had both Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua for an entire game. In that game, he threw more touchdown passes (four) than he had in the first six games of the season (three).

Rams' X factor: Nacua. There's no doubt the Rams missed Nacua for the five-plus games he was on IR because of a right knee injury. The receiver had his eighth game with 100 receiving yards Thursday in his 19th career game, according to ESPN Research. And he did that despite catching just a few from Stafford leading up to the game because of the short week.

Biggest concern going forward: The secondary. The Rams have seen improvement in this area this season, especially since the return of cornerback Darious Williams, but it might be the weakest position group on the field. Los Angeles has a young defense and hasn't had an elite player in the secondary since trading Jalen Ramsey in March 2023.

Reason for optimism: Week 8 win against the Minnesota Vikings. The Rams got a glimpse of what they hoped this offense would look like before they were hit by injuries, scoring a season-high 30 points against a team ranked first in defensive DVOA. Los Angeles had a slow start to the season but is healthy in time to be in the playoff conversation.

Biggest divisional game left on schedule: Week 17 vs. Cardinals. There's no bad pick of the remaining four divisional games, but beating Arizona is important because they've already lost to them this season. Arizona beat Los Angeles 41-10 in Week 3, a game in which Stafford took nine hits and five sacks, and Kyren Williams was held to 25 yards on 12 carries.

Key player expected back from injury: OL Steve Avila. The Rams have been hit hard on the offensive line, including Avila, who is on IR because of an MCL sprain. When Avila and Jonah Jackson return, the Rams should have the majority of their preferred starting offense back. The line has looked better of late, but there's no doubt Avila's and Jackson's return will be a boost. -- Sarah Barshop

San Francisco 49ers (4-4)

FPI's overall ranking: No. 6
Chances to win division: 37.8%
Chances to make the playoffs: 44.2%
Next five games: BYE, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, vs. Seattle, at Green Bay Packers, at Buffalo Bills

Assess the quarterback: For the most part, Brock Purdy has played well this season, but a rash of injuries at the skill positions combined with changing defensive game plans has made life more difficult for the offense. It has led to Purdy holding on to the ball longer, being forced to scramble more often and a decrease in yards after the catch. Purdy is still rolling toward a massive contract extension in the offseason, though the price tag might depend on how he closes out the year.

49ers' X factor: LB Dre Greenlaw. Aside from the Herculean efforts of Fred Warner, the Niners have simply not been good enough at linebacker. Greenlaw is working his way back from a torn Achilles and it seems unlikely he'll be at full strength this season. But San Francisco hopes he can return in the coming weeks and be an upgrade over the others who have filled in for him. Even at 80-85%, Greenlaw would help this defense significantly.

Biggest concern going forward: Special teams. In four losses, the 49ers have been outscored by an average of five points per game and three of those defeats have been by six points or fewer. The margin for error is slimmer for this team than it has been in the past, which is why a big special teams play or two can mean the difference between winning and losing. Through Week 8, San Francisco ranks 31st in the NFL in special teams expected points added (minus-17.89).

Reason for optimism: It's obviously not the preferred method of getting to the postseason, but this isn't the first time the Niners have started slow and gone on a run. Since Kyle Shanahan took over in 2017, the 49ers are a combined 39-22 in November, December and January, a 63.9% win percentage that ranks third in the NFL in that span. Most recently, they stormed back from a 3-5 start in 2021 to finish 10-7 and a 3-4 start that ended in a 13-4 record in 2022. Both teams made the NFC Championship Game. It also doesn't hurt that the NFC West is wide open.

Biggest divisional game left on schedule: Week 17 at Arizona. Because the 49ers blew double-digit leads against the Rams and Cardinals, every divisional game the rest of the way carries more weight than usual. But we'll opt for the season-ender in the desert based on the premise that this division is so up in the air that it very well could come down to the last week. The 49ers also surely wouldn't mind a measure of revenge for the walk-off loss to Arizona in Week 5.

Key player expected back from injury: RB Christian McCaffrey. Candidly, the 49ers' season might depend on not only McCaffrey's return but also his ability to be at or near his usual, prodigious levels of productivity. They are aiming for a Nov. 10 return against Tampa Bay. If that happens, the offense has a chance to take off and carry this team to contention. -- Nick Wagoner

Seattle Seahawks (4-4)

FPI's overall ranking: No. 24
Chances to win division: 13.8%
Chances to make the playoffs: 17.7%
Next five games: vs. Rams, BYE, at San Francisco, vs. Arizona, at Jets

Assess the quarterback: Geno Smith has been solid, but the Seahawks have needed him to be spectacular given all of their shortcomings. Often chasing big deficits and having no run game to lean on, Smith (14th in QBR) leads the NFL in attempts (308) and yards (2,197) but has eight TD passes compared to seven interceptions, with tough luck involved in a few of the picks.

Seahawks' X factor: Kenneth Walker III. The Seahawks' RB1 is tied for fourth with seven touchdowns from scrimmage even though he sat out two games. Walker is a difference-maker, but the Seahawks haven't involved him enough. They're last in the NFL in designed rush rate in part because they've abandoned the run in several games while playing from behind.

Biggest concern going forward: The run defense is a mess. The Seahawks are giving up the fourth-most rushing yards per game (148.4) and the fifth-highest yards-per-carry average (4.9). It has remained a weakness even as Seattle's defense has improved its health up front. Coach Mike Macdonald has identified it as a second-level issue, which helps explain why they traded for linebacker Ernest Jones IV.

Reason for optimism: Jones, acquired from the Tennessee Titans for Jerome Baker and a fourth-round pick, should help Seattle's run defense. He's known as a strong run defender and plays with an aggressive, downhill style that the Seahawks weren't getting from Baker. Their run defense wasn't much better in Jones' debut, though he had 15 tackles after practicing with his new team twice.

Biggest divisional game left on schedule: Week 11 at 49ers. All of the games look big given the tightly packed standings, but none are bigger than the rematch with the 49ers. San Francisco won the first meeting at Lumen Field, so losing both would give the 49ers the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Seahawks will be coming off their bye, which should help as they try to end a six-game losing streak to their division rivals.

Key player expected back from injury: Abraham Lucas' long-awaited return appears to be getting closer. The third-year right tackle -- arguably the team's top O-lineman as a rookie in 2022 -- has been on the physically unable to perform list while working his way back from surgery for a knee issue that sidelined him for much of 2023. He's back at practice and could be on the field in Week 11. -- Henderson

The Week 9 NFL schedule for the 2024 season is stacked with great matchups, and we have you covered with what you need to know heading into the weekend.

Our NFL Nation reporters bring us the biggest keys to every game, and analytics writer Seth Walder makes a bold prediction for each matchup. The ESPN Research team provides a big stat to know and a betting nugget for each contest, while our Football Power Index (FPI) goes inside the numbers with a game projection. Fantasy analyst Eric Moody finds fantasy football X factors, and three analysts -- Kalyn Kahler, Moody and Walder -- give us final score picks for every game. Everything you want to know is here in one spot to help you get ready for a loaded weekend of NFL football.

Let's get into the full Week 9 slate, including an NFC North showdown between the Lions and Packers and the quarterback Joe Flacco-led Colts taking on the Vikings. It all culminates with a "Monday Night Football" matchup between the Buccaneers and the Chiefs on ESPN. (Game times are Sunday unless otherwise noted.)

Jump to a matchup:
DAL-ATL | MIA-BUF | LV-CIN
LAC-CLE | NE-TEN | WSH-NYG
NO-CAR | DEN-BAL | JAX-PHI
CHI-ARI | DET-GB | LAR-SEA
IND-MIN | TB-KC

Thursday: NYJ 21, HOU 13
Bye: PIT, SF

Cowboys (3-4) at Falcons (5-3)

1 p.m. ET | FOX | ESPN BET: ATL -3 (51.5 O/U)

Cowboys storyline to watch: The Cowboys are at a crossroads. Will they be contending for the playoffs or draft positioning in the second half of the season? Only once since 1989 have the Cowboys made the playoffs after starting 3-5 -- in 2018 when their midseason trade for wide receiver Amari Cooper sparked a 10-6 finish. But a 4-4 record after eight games is no guarantee either. In that same time span, they've made the playoffs twice out of the five times they were .500 after eight games. -- Todd Archer

New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum will miss 2-to-3 weeks while forward Herb Jones is out 2-to-4 weeks due to injuries, the team announced on Friday.

McCollum has been diagnosed with a right adductor strain while Jones sustained a right shoulder strain and rotator cuff tear.

McCollum, in his fourth season with the Pelicans, was averaging 18.8 points, 4 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game.

Jones, in his fourth season, is averaging 6.8 points.

CAMDEN, N.J. -- Joel Embiid and Paul George will each miss a fifth straight game with left knee injuries when the Philadelphia 76ers host Memphis on Saturday night.

The oft-injured Embiid has yet to play this season, though he was a full participant at Friday's practice, including in 5-on-5 scrimmages with the team. George, who also has yet to play this season with a bone bruise on his left knee, also participated in the full practice and scrimmaged with the Sixers.

Embiid skipped the entire preseason and has not played any basketball that matters since he helped Team USA win gold in the Paris Olympics.

Embiid has officially been out with what the 76ers call left knee management. He was limited to 39 games last season, mostly because of knee surgery after tearing the meniscus in his left knee on Jan. 30 against Golden State.

"Everybody has been on the same page," Embiid said at the 76ers' New Jersey complex. "If your body doesn't react well, and if your body tells you one thing (sit out). I've done it. From what I can tell you, I've broken my face twice, I came back early with the risk of losing my vision. I have broken fingers. I still came back. When I see people say he doesn't want to play, I've done way too much for this city, putting myself at risk for people to be saying that."

Embiid's absence from the season opener raised suspicion in the NBA, and the league on Tuesday fined the team $100,000 for public statements, including by president of basketball operations Daryl Morey and by coach Nick Nurse, that were inconsistent with Embiid's health status and in violation of NBA rules, including the league's player participation policy. It found the participation policy was not violated.

Embiid was the No. 3 pick in the 2014 draft but missed his first two full seasons with injuries. Since his first full season in 2016, Embiid has played in 433 of a possible 805 regular-season games and only 59 of 67 possible playoff games.

Embiid sprained his right knee in the 2023 playoffs, which cost him games against Brooklyn and Boston. He missed two games in the second round in 2022 and another in the first round in 2021 with various injuries, on top of the two he missed to begin the 2018 playoffs with an orbital fracture and another in 2019, also with a knee problem.

"I wish I was as lucky as other ones," Embiid said. "But that doesn't mean I'm not trying and I'm not doing whatever it takes to try to be out there, which I'm going to be here pretty soon."

Embiid added he does not regret playing in the Olympics. He could return for the Sixers' three-game West Coast swing, which starts Monday against Phoenix.

"I think really it's being comfortable, trusting it," Embiid said. "I want to be at my best. I don't want to be in a situation where I'm like, I'm afraid if I do something or whatever (I get hurt again). I mentioned it since my last surgery, it was probably the toughest mentally. Mentally I'm just dealing with getting that trust back. In the past, it was just easy."

THE DENVER NUGGETS' franchise player sits at his locker after a preseason loss to the Phoenix Suns, alone with his thoughts.

Nikola Jokic's chronically sore right wrist is wrapped in ice, making it hard to text on his phone. He gave up social media years ago, so there's nothing to scroll through. And rarest of all, he does not have headphones in. Very little noise will be coming into -- or from -- the NBA's three-time most valuable player.

For 10 years, Jokic has sat at this same locker and gone about his business, rarely creating even a hint of drama. He is the kind of low-maintenance, foundational superstar that franchises dream about. He doesn't subtweet to exert leverage on the front office. He doesn't authorize whisper campaigns or have others voice frustration over the proverbial "desire to win." He doesn't call his co-star, Jamal Murray, a "Black Swan" or a "White Swan" when he's not aggressive enough.

If he has an opinion on the tension between the Nuggets' front office and coaching staff on how best to extend his prime, he's not sharing it. "That's not my job," Jokic said during a wide-ranging interview with ESPN. "I'm just trying to play basketball, and I'm happy if we have a chance every year."

Everyone in Denver knows the stakes for this season. General manager Calvin Booth has said the team is five years into what the Nuggets hope is a 10-year prime for Jokic, who has done nothing so far but average a career-high 31.5 points, 12.3 rebounds and 9.3 assists in 39 minutes through four games.

The Nuggets have an ownership group that has historically avoided paying luxury taxes and a front office hard-capped by the NBA's restrictive collective bargaining agreement. They've lost Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Reggie Jackson from the 2022-23 championship roster -- a role-player talent drain that has strained the relationship between head coach Michael Malone and a front office financially limited in what it can do.

"There was this urge to compete, especially from the players and the coaches and even myself," Booth told ESPN. "You want to win, especially coming off the heels of winning the championship. And that's probably where the tension started.

"What are you guys trying to do? Are you trying to win? Are you trying to develop? I think everybody had the best intent going in. There was buy-in. But I think competition and the focus on that can distract you from the buy-in."

Back inside the locker room, Jokic is quiet. His team had just lost to the Suns, even though Phoenix didn't play its three stars. His coach publicly called out his team's conditioning after the game, saying he'd left his stars in the game in the second half so they could work on theirs.

All the questions about the Nuggets' shooting and depth, and whether the young players the team is counting on to replace key contributors from the team that won a title in 2023 can ultimately do so, remained uncomfortably in the air.

"I think people in general, they always want more and more and more, but they don't know what they have," Jokic said. "I'm really happy we have one title -- a lot of very good players don't win."

But the Nuggets have the best player in the world on their roster -- whose prime, by Booth's own definition, is more than half over.

Which raises perhaps the most important question in the NBA: How do they maximize what's left of it?

"If we don't win it this year," forward Michael Porter Jr. told ESPN. "We all know they might have to break it up."

BOOTH UNDERSTANDS THE dilemma and doesn't hesitate to address the issues with how quickly Malone has integrated younger players -- a common, but delicate, dance for championship-level teams.

The Golden State Warriors have gone through a similar stretch the past five years as they sought to develop three lottery picks while preserving Stephen Curry's championship window, their infamous two-timeline approach that has led to considerable internal and external consternation.

"It's hard," Booth said. "You're a coach, you're trying to win the next game, and you want to see a proven product. I think that's where conceptually, even though it sounds like a good concept and the coaches bought into it, once you start getting into it and competitive juices going again, you get why [Malone] had a tough time with it sometimes.

"There's no enemies, there's no villains in this. We did play very well in the regular season. We played a lot of young guys. We basically did what we set out to do. I think our team is in a good position because we did that."

When they lost to Minnesota in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals last season, after squandering a 20-point second-half lead, the Nuggets became the fifth consecutive defending champion to fail to make it out of the second round of the playoffs.

By the time Denver got to the end of the season, Murray "was basically on one leg," as one team source put it. Aaron Gordon had a shoulder issue. Jokic's wrist was killing him. Caldwell-Pope had hamstring issues.

When it came time to close out the Timberwolves, the Nuggets just didn't have enough left. The veterans ran out of gas, and the young players who were supposed to have the juice to contribute, didn't.

"It's a matter of want and effort," Gordon told ESPN. "Championships aren't easy to come by, by any means. So we just got to play really f---ing hard."

There was direct evidence of Malone's lack of trust in the younger players in that Game 7. Only Christian Braun played meaningful minutes, and he had just 5 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists. Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther didn't play.

"I have empathy for Mike there because rookies are actually generally pretty bad in their early NBA time," a rival general manager told ESPN. "You normally aren't a playoff positive player until at least your second year, and that's some of the better picks."

After the 2023-24 season, the Nuggets' front office became even more committed to its plan to build around the championship core with the younger players they'd drafted and hoped to develop, but not before at least exploring one other option.

League sources said the Nuggets inquired about Paul George this offseason, but talks never escalated because Denver refused to discuss Braun, Watson or Strawther, and the Clippers weren't interested in solely taking back future salary -- likely the $147 million owed to Porter and Zeke Nnaji.

Nnaji is the Nuggets' fifth-highest-paid player and perhaps the best example of the disconnect between Booth's strategy and Malone's on-court decision-making.

In Nnaji's rookie season (2020-21), the 6-foot-9, 240-pound power forward shot almost 41% from 3. He shot over 46% from 3 in his second season, after which Booth rewarded him with a four-year, $32 million extension, thinking he'd develop into a key contributor behind Jokic.

After signing him to that deal, however, Nnaji played the fewest minutes per game since his rookie season and shot just 26.5% from 3. He played a total of 14 minutes in the 2024 playoffs. This season he has played in just one of the team's first four games.

These are the bets that have to work for the long-term strategy to pay off -- but the ones hardest to stomach when you're up against a hard cap and your superstar is ready to win, now.

"I feel like winning the championship is a combination of experience and juice," Booth said. "A lot of times, the younger guys have the juice."

That combination first requires the core four players to be great and healthy, and thus far, only Jokic and Gordon have delivered. Porter is shooting 39.6% overall and 29.6% on 3-pointers, and averaging just 13.3 points per game, the lowest of his career as a starter.

Murray's subpar performance has been even more vexing. The Nuggets have long shown faith in him while he recovered from various injuries or struggled with consistency on the court. He rewarded them during their championship run with the best basketball of his career.

They showed faith in him again this offseason by signing him to a max contract extension worth $208 million, despite a disappointing 2024 playoffs and Olympics with Team Canada.

Denver expected he'd come into camp with something to prove. Instead, he has continued to struggle with his shot and his conditioning, sources said, concerning the Nuggets. In his first four games this season, Murray has shot just 37.9% overall and 35% on 3s.

"The only way they are going to win is if Murray is really good," a rival executive told ESPN. "Joker is the best player in the world, but they're going to run him into the ground if he keeps playing this much."

BOOTH'S OFFICE ON the top floor of Ball Arena is remarkably bare for an executive who has had as much success in his first two seasons as Booth. There are nondescript black leather couches and chairs, and empty walls, with a view of downtown Denver through the large corner office windows. There's one cabinet filled with books, memorabilia and championship champagne bottles, reminders of what the Nuggets achieved just two years ago.

But the rest of the office is empty, suggesting there's still much to accomplish. Booth will be the chief architect of whatever comes next as the Nuggets have for months been speaking to him about a contract extension, multiple sources said, and a deal is expected soon.

Booth made his name during that 2022-23 championship season by bringing in eight new players to a roster that had mostly underachieved in the playoffs outside of a run to the conference finals in the bubble in 2020. None of those players were stars, but each played a critical role on the championship team.

Booth, who had been a role player throughout his nine-year NBA career, saw how each of those veteran players -- most notably Brown, Green and Caldwell-Pope -- would complement the team's core of Jokic, Porter, Murray and Gordon.

By that point, Jokic had won two MVP awards for his individual brilliance -- and his ability to carry the Nuggets while Murray was out because of a serious knee injury -- but it was time to surround him with more talent and the right kind of role players. "It's pressure," Booth said. "But it's a healthy pressure. I like challenges. Part of the enjoyable part of the job is problem solving."

A book in Booth's office offers a clue as to how he approaches the challenge of roster building around Jokic given the financial realities of the new collective bargaining agreement, which was agreed upon just months after Denver won its first title.

The orange-covered Wall Street Journal best-seller, "Barking Up the Wrong Tree," takes a scientific and data-driven approach to understand what actually determines success, questioning longstanding beliefs and clichés in a contrarian but ultimately nonconfrontational way.

This is the type of approach Booth took when he assumed the position from his previous boss, Tim Connelly, in summer 2022. He assembled a 34-page report on previous champions, looking for trends or defining characteristics such as height, length, age and roster composition.

And it's the type of approach he has taken in each of the past two offseasons when the Nuggets opted to let the same role players who'd helped them win their first title leave in free agency, in favor of locking up the team's four core players and opening up minutes for the younger, cost-controlled players the team drafted and hopes to develop in Braun, Watson and Strawther.

"The other part of the Christian and Peyton equation is," Booth said, "I always saw those two matching up to [Boston Celtics wings] Jayson [Tatum] and Jaylen [Brown]."

He believed, and still believes, those players could contribute to the Nuggets' next title team.

"I think there's a misconception that championship teams or Finals teams don't play young guys," Booth said. "That is totally off base. In Tony Parker's rookie year, he played 34 minutes of a game in the playoffs. The next year, the [San Antonio Spurs] won a championship. Tony, Speedy Claxton and Manu [Ginobili] were all in there. In [2009-10], the Lakers played Trevor Ariza and Andrew Bynum, when he was just a baby."

Braun was not a major contributor in 2023 but did score 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting in Denver's 109-94 win over the Miami Heat in Game 3 of the Finals. Still, the Nuggets, with an average age of 27 years and 297 days old, were the second-youngest NBA champion since 2000, trailing just the 2008-09 Lakers, who repeated.

The third-youngest team since 2000? The 2014-15 Warriors, the beginning of the dynasty.

MALONE IS WIRED completely differently. He is competitive and combative over everything, even, rather famously, over how a sideline reporter shortened his first name to Mike. He's also eighth in wins (463) among current head coaches and the fourth-longest-tenured head coach in the league, behind Gregg Popovich (Spurs), Erik Spoelstra (Heat) and Steve Kerr (Warriors) -- a quartet that has a combined 12 championships.

Malone, Booth and owner Josh Kroenke did a joint news conference in May to project a united front and tamp down on leaguewide chatter about their frayed relationship.

But Malone's job is to win games, and he's not shy about pointing out deficiencies in his team, or his organization, when he sees them.

After the preseason loss to the Suns, Malone called his team out of shape and the rest of the NBA "soft" for being afraid to do conditioning drills in the preseason. Two nights later, after another preseason loss to Oklahoma City, Malone was asked whether Denver was motivated to avenge last season's second-round loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

"I haven't seen it," he said.

After two wretched shooting performances to open the regular season, Malone brought up the loss of Caldwell-Pope in his postgame news conference.

"Going into the season, shooting [was] a concern of mine," Malone said. "You lose a guy like KCP, who was a 40% 3-point shooter, you know what I mean? I thought Christian Braun was great tonight. [But] Christian Braun is not going to be KCP. I think we all have to understand that, which I think we do, and embrace CB for who he is."

The Nuggets had an opportunity to get something back for Caldwell-Pope, league sources said, by agreeing to a sign-and-trade with the Dallas Mavericks, who offered Tim Hardaway Jr. or Josh Green, but Denver ultimately declined to do it, believing Braun could fill the role.

Dallas moved on to Klay Thompson via a sign-and-trade with the Warriors. Caldwell-Pope ended up signing a three-year, $60 million contract with the Orlando Magic as the Nuggets prioritized signing Murray and Gordon to extensions.

But public comments such as the ones Malone routinely makes, lamenting the loss of skill and experience he must replace, have done little to quell the tension. Additionally, the Nuggets' uneven start -- Denver is 15th in offense, 19th in defense, 23rd in shooting and 28th in bench production -- has raised concern even further.

THE ONLY OPINION that truly matters is Jokic's, and Booth said he seeks it often.

"[He] has earned the respect of check-ins and seeing, 'What do you think about it?'" Booth said. "There's a fine line -- if there's somebody that he's played with for a long time, I wouldn't put that responsibility on him. ... But we try to involve him as much as we can."

He said, for example, Jokic was a big proponent of signing Russell Westbrook to be the team's backup point guard. "I think more than anything, [Jokic] loves [Westbrook's] passion for the game," Booth said.

But on bigger-picture issues, such as the best way to construct the team around him under the new collective bargaining rules, whether to entrust younger players with bigger roles or sacrifice flexibility and depth to retain veteran free agents, Jokic demurs.

"I'm just here to play basketball," he said. "I don't understand contracts, this and that, years and CBA. ... That's not my job."

What he does have is a strong opinion on how the younger players need to approach the responsibility they've been given.

"I think they need to want that from themselves, too," Jokic said. "I think they need to be the best version of themselves."

There are many ways to interpret those 20 words.

But Braun, the 6-foot-7 swingman drafted 21st out of Kansas in 2022, might have the best take. "He cares more than anybody, literally more than anybody," Braun said of Jokic. "He's in here working more than anybody. He's in the training room more than anybody. He wants to win badly, and that's who he is."

In other words, Jokic leads by example. Everyone else had better follow. Jokic's star turn, and his public comments and attitude, has left some with the impression that basketball is just a job to him. That he'd prefer to be home in Sombor, Serbia, training his horses -- delightfully off the grid -- and completely disconnected from the NBA world.

Braun has the opposite impression. "He'll call to check on you, talk to you, talk s--- or just have a funny conversation. ...I don't think he disengages with the world. I think he's working his ass off because he always comes back here and he's in just as good or better shape every year."

It's a quiet effort to stay connected -- with the franchise he leads and the young players he knows he needs.

"I don't like when I'm going to have too much time off," Jokic said. "Then I get too loose."

He said he took just a week or so off after leading Serbia to the bronze medal at the Paris Summer Olympics.

If it were any other superstar, the line of questioning would shift to whether this abbreviated rest period reflected a desire to respond to last season's second-round playoff loss to the Timberwolves.

"It's easy to be a general after the war," Jokic said. "They won that battle that night and the series. We had our chances, but we didn't take it and they won it.

"I don't really comment and look at other teams. I mean, that's how I was raised: Be big in victory, be big in defeat. That's how I'm doing my whole life. It's not something that I'm trying to do, it's just in my nature."

Even if Jokic says he doesn't look at other teams, or analyze the broader NBA landscape, he understands his own. And his desire to win in Denver is unrelenting.

Whether his franchise has positioned him to do so remains to be seen.

The Baltimore Orioles acquired outfielder Daz Cameron from the Oakland Athletics on Thursday in exchange for cash considerations.

Cameron, 27, played the 2024 campaign with Oakland after three years (2020 to 2022) with the Detroit Tigers. Cameron was in the Baltimore Orioles' organization in 2023, spending the whole season with Triple-A Norfolk.

In 66 games with the A's, Cameron batted .200 with career highs in home runs (five) and RBIs (15). Across 139 career MLB games for Detroit and Oakland, Cameron is a .201 hitter with 10 homers and 39 RBIs.

He split 2024 between left, right and center field, but Cameron has started more MLB games (57) in right field than anywhere else.

While with Norfolk in 2023, Cameron batted .268 with 16 homers, 67 RBIs and 23 stolen bases in 110 games. He made 62 starts in center field.

The Philadelphia Phillies traded infielder/outfielder Scott Kingery to the Los Angeles Angels on Friday for cash considerations.

Kingery, 30, appeared in 325 games for the Phillies from 2018 to 2022 but spent the past two seasons at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He batted .268 with 25 homers, 67 RBIs and 25 steals in 125 games with the IronPigs in 2024.

A second-round draft pick by Philadelphia in 2015, Kingery is a career .229 hitter with 30 home runs, 96 RBIs and 25 stolen bases in the majors.

Defensively, Kingery has made more than 30 starts at four different positions: shortstop, third base, second base and center field.

Blake Treinen glanced toward his dugout, saw manager Dave Roberts emerge from it and, for a moment, felt demoralized. There were two runners on with one out in the eighth inning. The Los Angeles Dodgers clung to a one-run lead, a Yankee Stadium crowd of close to 50,000 people had sprung back into life, and Treinen, navigating his third inning, was exhausted. But a title was only five outs away. Giancarlo Stanton, the man due up, was supposed to be his primary matchup. Treinen didn't want to leave -- and Roberts didn't intend to intervene.

He arrived to encourage. To comfort.

Roberts, near the end of his ninth tension-filled October as the Dodgers' manager, placed both of his hands on Treinen's chest to calm his nerves.

"Focus up," Treinen recalled hearing. "This is your last guy."

Roberts looked on from the dugout as Treinen induced a harmless popup to Stanton on the first pitch. When he saw Freddie Freeman wave him off out of the corner of his eye, he trusted his first baseman's instincts and let Treinen stay for another hitter, Anthony Rizzo, and roared when it resulted in an inning-ending strikeout. In the ninth, with no legitimate reliever options left, he turned to Walker Buehler -- a starter who hadn't pitched out of the bullpen since 2018 -- and watched as he retired three consecutive New York Yankees with ease.

The Dodgers had clinched a championship, the culmination of a month in which Roberts seemed to push every correct button. He trusted when it felt right, interceded when he needed to, went off script when moments demanded and navigated October with a keen sense for the pulse of his team. It was most obvious at the very end, in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night -- 24 hours after a bullpen game, with his starting pitcher recording only four outs, while using a record seven relievers in a title clincher.

"That's one of the best games I've ever seen managed," said Freeman, the World Series MVP. "That was special."

For close to a decade, Roberts has been the most front-facing member of an organization that continually excelled during the regular season and came up short in the playoffs. Every dominant summer was credited to a star-laden roster and an astute front office, leaving Roberts to absorb the blame when things went wrong in the fall.

This October, though, served as Roberts' stage for vindication -- and might have cemented his place in the Hall of Fame. His maneuvering mitigated a short-handed starting rotation. His optimism anchored a team in desperate need of it.

"To be honest, Dave is the real reason why we're here," Mookie Betts said amid a raucous champagne celebration inside Yankee Stadium's visiting clubhouse. "I know there's a lot of talk about Doc, but Doc is the best, man. Doc loves each and every person in here, Doc has confidence in each and every person in here, Doc never lost confidence in anybody in here. And no matter what we went through, he was always positive."

The defining moment, many of his players have said, actually came in September -- specifically, Sept. 15 in Atlanta.

Tyler Glasnow was among the headliners of the Dodgers' $1 billion offseason, brought in to anchor a rotation that underwhelmed in recent Octobers. But Glasnow's elbow wasn't responding. On Sept. 14, scans revealed he had suffered a sprain that would end his season, the latest in a string of devastating pitching injuries that would befall the team.

The Dodgers proceeded to suffer another listless loss to the Atlanta Braves that night, their seventh defeat in 12 games. The Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres were nipping at their heels for the top of the division, and the Dodgers didn't know if they'd have enough pitching to get through October.

"It just felt like the entire year we kept getting dealt blow after blow," third baseman Max Muncy said. "And then guys would come back, and then another blow, and guys would come back. It finally felt like we were turning the page and starting to see more guys come back than go down. Then your big pitcher gets told he can't pitch the rest of the year, and that was kind of like, 'Man, not again.' It was just a big kick in the gut."

Roberts isn't one for team meetings; he prefers individual conversations with players. But on the afternoon of Sept. 15, it felt appropriate. That it was Roberto Clemente Day provided an ideal entry. He presented it as an opportunity to educate players on Clemente's legacy, but mostly used it to offer them an important reminder: that so many All-Stars, MVPs and future Hall of Famers still dotted their clubhouse. That they still possessed more talent than any other team in the sport, regardless of who might no longer be available. That they were still good enough to win it all. That night, the Dodgers handily beat the Braves while on their way to winning 11 of their final 14 regular season games.

Roberts' positivity has defined his managerial career, and this team might have needed it more than any other.

"He is an eternal optimist, the way he breathes that into our guys," Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. "This year we had more adversity and different guys and guys feeling the weight of that. And for them to continue to breathe that optimism, talk about how many good players we still have in here, I think was a meaningful part of us finishing strong and doing what we did in October."

Roberts navigated the Ippei Mizuhara betting scandal, which prompted the firing of Shohei Ohtani's longtime interpreter. He supported Freeman while his young son fought through a temporary bout of paralysis. On the field, he massaged a delicate situation around another superstar, Betts, who transitioned from second base to shortstop and later had to accept a return to right field and a move out of the leadoff spot. He maneuvered through a jarring string of injuries -- from Betts to Muncy, Yoshinobu Yamamoto to Glasnow, Treinen to Brusdar Graterol. And he got the Dodgers through October while routinely staging bullpen games.

"It's gratifying," Roberts said. "The players performed, and yeah, I put them in positions that I felt were the right positions and the decisions worked out. But a lot of it is the trust that my guys have in me. And that's everything. I believe in them. And this is the first team that I felt really like the trust went both ways. And that regardless of whatever decision I made, they were going to support me 100 percent."

The full buy-in this year, Roberts said, came because the likes of Freeman, Betts, Muncy and Hernandez "were my biggest supporters."

"I just think that from there, everyone sort of really, really had full trust."

Since Roberts took over for the 2016 season, the Dodgers have posted a .627 regular-season winning percentage -- the all-time highest for any manager (minimum 250 games). That stretch included only one championship, captured amid the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Leading the Dodgers to another, giving them their first full-season title since 1988, put him alongside Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda as the only Dodgers managers to win multiple rings.

"It should mean everything to him," Dodgers first-base coach Clayton McCullough said. "It should mean for all those that ever doubted, ever criticized, to never do it again -- to trust in what this guy is doing."

A championship is the culmination of every aspect of an organization. It was ownership that green-lit the massive financial commitments over the winter. It was the front office that made critical additions at midseason. It was the training staff that worked diligently to navigate Freeman through his string of injuries in October. It was the scouting department that spent weeks finding holes for the Dodgers to expose in the World Series. And it was the players who, in the midst of adversity, rallied together.

But Roberts' fingerprints were everywhere.

"I'm proud of it," Roberts said, his uniform soaked in champagne as he left the interview room inside an emptying Yankee Stadium after the World Series win. "Legacy is something that I'm proud of. I'm a baseball fan. I think I do right by the game. I love players; I think I do right by the players -- players that play for me, players that compete against us. I think that my loyalty to the Dodgers, the fan base, the organization, are my priorities. To win another championship, I guess I'll let people talk about my legacy. But I'm just very proud of this group of men."

Former Manchester United star Dwight Yorke was appointed coach of Trinidad and Tobago on Friday, aiming to lead his home islands back to the World Cup.

Yorke captained the Soca Warriors at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the only time they qualified. Trinidad and Tobago did not advance from a group including England, Sweden and Paraguay.

"Dwight's experience, leadership, and commitment to the red, white, and black are exactly what we need to inspire our players and our nation," Trinidadian soccer federation president Kieron Edwards said in a statement.

The 52-year-old Yorke joins the team as its second behind Costa Rica in a five-team World Cup qualifying group. The top two advance to the next stage, and Trinidad's place could be sealed by beating Saint Kitts and Nevis on June 6.

FRISCO, Texas -- Despite the free-agent losses, the lack of free-agent additions and the reliance on in-house improvement, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones never anticipated his team would be 3-4 after seven games.

Speaking on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas on Friday, Jones was asked about the play of right guard Zack Martin and right tackle Terence Steele, but took on a broader view of the roster.

"Well, I think we're having a rougher go than I anticipated. Let's put it like that. Let's don't couple that with just those two," Jones said. "But having me in the loop has to be there. It is rougher and I did not anticipate the challenges that we're having with this team, but I am reminded of teams that I've seen that have had a lot of success and put themselves in position to take a shot and they were 3-4."

The Cowboys take on the NFC South leading Atlanta Falcons (5-3) on Sunday as they start a four-week stretch against teams that are a combined 22-10 in the Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans and Washington Commanders.

On Thursday, Dak Prescott called Sunday's game a must-win.

"Hell, I mean to me every game is but obviously I mean, 3-4, as I've said, a lot of season left, but the first start to be able to say that confidently is getting back even, especially, right, having a couple of home ones after that," Prescott said.

Jones does not have to look far for reasons to the team's under .500 start.

"When I look at the whys that we're here, I really have a tough time getting past just sheer youth, sheer inexperience in the offensive line and I have a tough time getting past that turnover (ratio). I'm telling you when you look at that and knowing what turnovers will do for you, we've had through seven games, we, the Cowboys have turned the ball over 13 times. The entire year last year we didn't turn it over but 16 times. Thirteen times we turned it over. ... It really a plus that we've won three games."

The Cowboys have dealt with a number of injuries on the defensive side of the ball and are looking at being without pass rusher Micah Parsons (ankle) for a fourth straight game. Cornerback DaRon Bland (foot) was added to the 53-man roster this week but has not practiced. Cornerback Trevon Diggs has not practiced this week because of a calf strain.

What gives Jones' encouragement that things can turn around?

"OK, first of all I have seen the players that are out on the field do what I'm talking about doing that would address turnovers or do address having your communication in your offensive line, improving your running game, improving your protection," Jones said. "I have seen Dak make the kinds of plays that would cause us to have a different turnover ratio, for instance. So your question is right on but I have seen these guys do it. I know that Mike McCarthy, I know the caliber of coach he is. He's one of the highest percentage winning/losing coaches that's been in the NFL. And he's won a Super Bowl.

"So when you've seen it done in football, then you know they can do it. Then that gives you reasons to say what I say and that is that we can get better."

Since Jones bought the team in 1989, the Cowboys have had five 4-4 starts to the season and made the playoffs twice (2006, 1999). They have had six 3-5 starts and made the playoffs just once (2018). That year, the Cowboys made a trade for wide receiver Amari Cooper that jumpstarted their season.

The trade deadline is Tuesday. The Cowboys have ample cap space to make a major trade, but he said the Cowboys would not make a trade for the sake of making a trade.

"We're looking for meat on the bone that can improve our team," Jones said.