Rotoworld: Oregon RB LaMichael James and Oklahoma State WR Justin Blackmon among top 10 players who are being overhyped for the 2012 draft.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
PBT: Boston's Rajon Rondo continues to be named in trade talks, which is madness. The Celtics guard creates offense and makes everyone around him better, which was evident in Sunday's win over the Bulls.
Arc: Syracuse is among a solid group of No. 1 seeds in our latest tournament projections, but the middle of the pack is much more murky.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods greeted their Sunday pairing at Pebble Beach with optimism. But the day would end happily only for one.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP
PHILADELPHIA - Maurice Cheeks has at least another season to try and win a championship ring in Philadelphia as a coach to match the one he won as an All-Star guard with the 76ers.
A nice first step would simply be leading the Sixers back to the playoffs.
Even without a winning record in his first two seasons in Philly and the Sixers under .500 this season, team president Ed Stefanski believed Cheeks was still the right coach to guide the franchise’s rebuilding process.
Cheeks and the Sixers agreed to a one-year contract extension Wednesday, giving him through the 2008-09 season to get Philly back to the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
“That’s what I’m excited about, the chance to come back and try this all over again,” Cheeks said. “When you have a lot of young players, you hope that you can see it through.”
The Sixers have not reached the playoffs in Cheeks’ first two full seasons and they entered Wednesday night’s game against New York holding the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference.
Cheeks, in the final season of a three-year deal, is 96-122 with the Sixers.
Stefanski, hired in early December, said watching a fairly young team grow under Cheeks gave him the confidence to add another year to the contract. The two speak daily, exchanging feedback and tips on the state of the franchise, each becoming more open as the games go on.
But the Sixers are finally expected to have some salary cap flexibility — about $10 million in cap space for next summer. Stefanski plans to tinker with the roster and wanted to see how Cheeks meshed with any possible new additions before committing to him beyond next season.
“I feel comfortable with Mo, but it’s only been a couple of months,” Stefanski said. “I feel that I need more time to see if I feel this is more of a long-term thing. But things are going in the right direction right now for me. So in my mind, one year makes a lot of sense to me.”
Stefanski said it was unlikely Cheeks would have to adapt to any more changes this season. While other teams are calling about point guard Andre Miller, Stefanski said he wasn’t shopping the veteran and didn’t anticipate making any major moves before Thursday’s trade deadline.
“If a trade would come up that would not hurt our future, I would think hard that we pull the trigger on something like that, but we’ve gotten no deals that I think make sense to help us,” Stefanski said.
PBT: Boston's Rajon Rondo continues to be named in trade talks, which is madness. The Celtics guard creates offense and makes everyone around him better, which was evident in Sunday's win over the Bulls.
Paul Pierce has been around long enough to know what Rajon Rondo's performance can mean for the aging Boston Celtics.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
The Red Wings have finally started to embrace a record they've been chasing.
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