As a courtesy to everyone out there, I want to give you this quick note: The WNBA starts today. I’m sure that everyone has been anxiously awaiting the return of the league and knew that, but just in case, I wanted to give you a heads up. I love the league for a ton of reasons, but one of them is that I find good value on teams and games. I’m going to share some thoughts on some futures for this year. I’ll have my first official play tomorrow.

Champion

I don’t have an overwhelming feeling about any team in particular to win the championship, but there are some clear favorites. The Aces have won three of the past four and have the best player in the league. The New York Liberty are the favorite at +220, and it makes total sense with Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones. The Fever are +450 after making it to the semifinals last season without Caitlin Clark. I don’t see them repeating that success, but it is certainly possible. They are a deep team.

For value, I would lean to the Minnesota Lynx, the best team from last season at +800. But they’ve lost a ton of depth. The Fever are my next favorite with their depth and continuity. The Liberty are a good value, though.

CAITLIN CLARK’S FEVER MAKE SEVERAL KEY OFFSEASON SIGNINGS IN CHAMPIONSHIP PURSUIT

Win Totals

The Chicago Sky stand out to me as potentially the worst franchise in all of the WNBA. This team is going to be decent, but I have a lot of questions about where the offense will come from. They have a lot of veterans — DiJonai Carrington, Skylar Diggins, Courtney Vandersloot and Natasha Cloud. At this point in their careers, most of them are known for defense over offense. I like the under 19.5 on them.

The Los Angeles Sparks went 21-23 last season and should improve this year. They have Cameron Brink for a full season, and Nneka Ogwumike returning. Kelsey Plum proved she could carry the scoring load for the team. She is one of the more reliable scorers in the league. I do have some questions about their depth, but I like the over 25.5.

AZZI FUDD QUESTIONS WNBA REFS BEFORE EVEN PLAYING A REGULAR-SEASON GAME AS A DALLAS WINGS ROOKIE

The Dallas Wings are probably my favorite bet this season. I expect them to improve significantly after going 10-34 last season. They got the No. 1 overall pick and took Azzi Fudd to pair with Paige Bueckers. The UConn duo should be elite this year. As a third scorer, Arike Ogunbowale is one of the best options in the league. I love the Alanna Smith signing. She does a bit of everything, from scoring to rebounding and defense. I’ll take the over 22.5.

Awards

A’ja Wilson is a beast on defense, and at +250 I think we still have some good value on the favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year. Wilson has won three of the past four, tying Alanna Smith last year. Napheesa Collier is the other winner. Cameron Brink is a great value at +1200. She has a great rim presence and is athletic enough to switch on a lot of positions.

Fudd is listed as the second favorite for Rookie of the Year. I could see her not winning because she is likely to be a second or third option on her team. My guess is that Fudd won’t get enough credit for the Wings’ improvement to warrant winning. I like Lauren Betts at +700. She will be an offensive force for the Mystics. Washington is not a good team, but that means Betts will probably get more run.

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Last little note: I’ll sprinkle Bueckers MVP at +1400. She is going to be the focal point of her team, and they will be much improved. Now, with more talent around her, she is likely to lead them to the playoffs. Clark is probably not going to play enough, and Wilson may suffer from voter fatigue. I like the odds on her.

Let’s get down to the season. Remember, all WNBA tickets cash the same as any other sport.

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For more sports betting information and plays, follow David on X/Twitter: @futureprez2024 

OKLAHOMA CITY — Austin Reaves has officially entered the Lakers’ postseason chat. It might still be too little, too late.

The Lakers guard responded to his worst playoff performance with his best, recording a playoff career-high 31 points Thursday in the Lakers’ 125-107 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at Paycom Center.

But against the powerful Thunder, Reaves didn’t get a chance to punctuate his comeback night with any emphatic celebration. He instead ended the game in a heated conversation with officials, surrounded by almost all of his teammates as the Lakers felt they were battling the referees and the Thunder in equal measure.

Reaves’ game-high scoring effort wasn’t enough to fend off the relentless defending champions that had six players score in double figures, including three with 20 or more points. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren each had 22 points for the Thunder, who take a 2-0 lead as the best-of-seven series turns to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Saturday.

With Luka Doncic sidelined because of a hamstring injury that is expected to keep him out for three more weeks, the Lakers are still outmanned in the Western Conference semifinals despite Reaves’ recent return. He rushed back from a Grade 2 left oblique strain in time to play in the Lakers’ first-round series but has struggled to find his rhythm after a month-long absence.

He shot a dreadful three for 16 from the field in Game 1 against the Thunder, finished with only eight points and missed all five of his three-point shots. Including his two first-round games, Reaves had missed 14 consecutive three-pointers entering Game 2.

Criticism of Reaves dominated social media after Game 1. The 27-year-old guard is due for a new contract this summer that would solidify his status as one of the sport’s star players. A slow start to these playoffs and last year’s postseason struggles made Reaves an online punching bag for fan frustrations.

But the low-key Reaves is “one of the least chronically online NBA players there is,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said before the game. The extent of Reaves’ social media usage is his long-time friend Trent Swaim posting golfing videos on the duo’s “Hillbilly Bogey” accounts and Reaves asking his representatives to post sponsored content for his endorsement deals.

He doesn’t need to troll internet comments to fuel his game. Reaves can do that on his own.

“He’s got a great sense of self-accountability to where he’s his own worst critic,” Redick said before the game, “and he’s going to hold himself to a standard of how he wants to play.”

Reaves drove aggressively into the paint early Thursday, tying the score 16-16 in the first quarter on a three-point play after the Lakers erased an early seven-point deficit. He had 13 points in the first half as the Lakers took a one-point lead into the locker room. He scored or assisted on the Lakers’ first 11 points of the third quarter as the team built a five-point lead with 8:35 to go in the third.

“That’s what we need Austin to be,” guard Luke Kennard said. “Even though he missed some shots last game, he was aggressive and he just got back into it. … I know a lot of people can think it’s easy to just come back and play a basketball game but at this level, what he’s done last series and now, it’s impressive. We need him to continue to be aggressive. He’s such a good teammate, easy to play with. It’s good to see him have a really good game and, hopefully gives him confidence going into the next one.”

The Lakers need to play near-perfect basketball to have a chance to knock off the defending champions. The Thunder took a 2-0 series lead against the Lakers despite relatively quiet performances from Gilgeous-Alexander. The reigning most valuable player had 18 points in Game 1 and was limited to less than 28 minutes Thursday because of foul trouble.

When Gilgeous-Alexander picked up his fourth foul with 10:34 remaining in the third quarter Thursday, the Thunder trailed 66-61. They didn’t need their star to rip off a 32-14 run to finish the quarter and take a commanding 13-point lead into the fourth.

The Lakers had seven turnovers during the decisive stretch. Reaves had five of the Lakers’ 21 total giveaways and the miscues turned into 26 points for the Thunder, who led the league in points off turnovers during the regular season.

“It starts with the turnovers,” Reaves said. “I think you’re not going to be perfect; you’re going to have turnovers. Just trying to eliminate the live-ball turnovers where they get easy fast-break layups or threes or dunks.”

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Deonna Purrazzo was credited with helping restart the women’s division in Ring of Honor (ROH) when she joined the company in 2015. She was featured in one of the first women’s matches in the company’s history in nearly a decade at the time.

She spent three years with the company before she landed back in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in 2024. By that time, AEW co-founder Tony Khan had bought Ring of Honor and it became a sister company of AEW. Upon her return to Ring of Honor, she was thrust into a tournament to determine the first ROH women’s pure champion.

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In December, Purrazzo defeated Billie Starkz to be crowned the champion and has held the title ever since.

As a wave of new wrestlers hit the free-agent market over the last two weeks, Purrazzo touted the opportunities that Ring of Honor has for women’s wrestlers – something that was “really important” to the New Jersey native.

“I think what’s so great about Ring of Honor is that it kinda flies under the radar a little bit,” she told Fox News Digital. “So, you get to really develop and tell stories and show personality and maybe try something different than you would if you were on ‘Dynamite’ every single week. I think that there is really great women’s wrestling within Ring of Honor. Most weeks there’s four, five, six women’s matches and so I think that it doesn’t get enough credit online that it deserves for what it’s doing and the purpose it’s serving for women’s wrestling, which is, again, really important to me, starting in Ring of Honor, starting the women’s division 11 years ago.

“To get to see multiple women every single week grow and develop, I think it’s really important and I think that if more people saw it as a landing spot, we can maybe grow that perception in the public’s eyes.”

Athena sits at the top of the women’s division in ROH. She’s held the ROH Women’s World Championship for more than 1,200 days. Red Velvet is the current ROH Women’s World Television Championship and has held it for more than 150 days.

Purrazzo also has the opportunity to help veterans and first-responders in need.

She and her husband, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling star Steve Maclin, are putting on the Battle for the Brave on June 6. The charity event will benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

Purrazzo stressed how important giving back to military veterans was to her in an interview with Fox News Digital earlier this week, especially as a military wife. Maclin served in the U.S. Marines.

“Growing up in New Jersey as well, 9/11 was such a big deal. For me, I was in second grade,” she said. “I didn’t understand what was going on but in the days after, I felt a sense of unity in that everyone came together, everyone was proud to be an American, and we were going to fight back and stand together and be one, united country. And I think that, that feeling has always stuck with me but being a veteran’s wife, it’s taken on a completely different role.

“Steve opening up about his service and things he’s seen and experienced with me has given me a new passion to let veterans know that, yes, war will always come home with you but it doesn’t have to define you. Steve was so lucky that he was able to find wrestling right after he got out of the Marine Corps and it saved him, in a way, from falling down the unknown path of ‘What am I? Who am I next?’

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“And I think that’s something that our veterans deal with unbeknownst to the rest of the public. It’s not talked about enough. They say 22 veterans but right now the math is leading toward 44 veterans a day lose their lives to that battle – an identity crisis of who am I after service. So, that’s what it means to be American for me now, is showing that support for our veterans, showing that our country is here for them and we’re here to support them and we’re here to give them the resources that they need to live healthy and successful lives after service.”