MINNEAPOLIS — As Lindsay Whalen’s face appeared on the JumboTron in Target Center on Tuesday night to a raucous reception, the Minnesota Lynx PA announcer took some liberties with her introduction. “She’s an avid golfer,” he quipped about arguably the most famous homegrown basketball player in Minnesota … before stating the obvious. “And her No. 13 jersey is retired in the rafters.”

From a courtside seat, Whalen watched as the Lynx punched their ticket to the WNBA Finals with an 88-77 semifinals win over the Connecticut Sun, marking the franchise’s first trip to the finals since 2017, when Whalen helped lead Minnesota to its fourth championship in seven seasons.

After that 2017 run, the band remained together for another season, but by 2019, Whalen, Maya Moore and Rebekkah Brunson had retired. That same year, Cheryl Reeve used her No. 6 WNBA Draft pick to take Napheesa Collier out of UConn. Collier’s numbers, at the time, reminded Reeve of Moore and fellow UConn alum Breanna Stewart, who had just won her first WNBA MVP title in 2018.

Six years later, it’s Collier who is the face of Minnesota basketball. So it came as no surprise that at the final buzzer, Collier nearly sprinted directly across the court to hug Whalen, who is enshrined in Lynx lore for what she did for this franchise in the 2010s.

Lindsay Whalen is in the house for Game 5 tonight!! @Lindsay_13 #lynxrecognize #wnba pic.twitter.com/GiTJUTtJvk

— Wendell Epps (@epps_wendell) October 9, 2024

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Collier said it’s meaningful to have “someone who is such a Hall of Famer and has gone through this and done what I want to achieve. … I wanted to give her a hug just to say thank you for showing up for us, for showing up for me and the team. Thank you for passing this legacy on to us because it means a lot, and (I) definitely want to do her proud and continue. The job is not done.”

The next part of the job? A monumental task. In New York, the Lynx face a team that was assembled to win titles. The Liberty brought in multiple former MVPs (Stewart and Jonquel Jones) and they added Courtney Vandersloot, who could play well with Sabrina Ionescu, their own drafted guard. New York got German star Leonie Fiebich (drafted in 2020 but acquired by New York in 2023) to come over to the States to play in the WNBA.

New York is a team dripping in All-Stars, accolades and expectations.

Frankly, it doesn’t look all that different from Reeve’s last team that made it to the finals. She had five starters on her 2017 squad who are now in various (and multiple) Halls of Fame. She had four players who won gold medals with the U.S. Olympic team. She had a starting core whose jerseys all hang in the rafters alongside Whalen’s No. 13.

This year’s Minnesota team? In the preseason, it was picked to finish ninth. There’s Collier, a bona fide star and two-time Olympic gold medalist. Her jersey isn’t in the rafters yet, but with her current trajectory, it seems like only a matter of time. But she might be the only one whose jersey hangs alongside the other greats’ at the end of the day.

“Becky Hammon in Vegas described us as good players (who make) a great team,” Reeve said. “That’s what’s so special about this team — we didn’t scare anybody. I’m not sure anybody at any point in the season was like, ‘Yeah, they have a real shot at winning a championship,’ other than the people that are in our corner.”

No coach has won more postseason games than Reeve (47 — the same number the Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks have as entire franchises). She knows that to win in the postseason, you have to have talent and a lead guard you trust and who elevates every player around her. You need to have a player like Collier, whose steadiness permeates the entire team. (It helps when that leader plays at an MVP level, too.)

Reeve knows, especially, that teams that make it to the finals need to be selfless.

After the Lynx win, Courtney Williams recalled a moment following a regular-season game against the Dallas Wings. Reeve had pulled Williams aside in the locker room to tell her that under the challenging elements of the game, she thought Williams bent.

“From that moment, I invited hard,” Williams said. “Obviously, those conversations don’t have to happen with Phee — not that I know of — or any of the other players. I just didn’t want to be that person to let the coaching staff down or my teammates down, just giving in to hard. We embody that. None of us give in to hard.”

With a WNBA Finals matchup against the Liberty and coming off five relentless games against Connecticut, it doesn’t get much harder. Minnesota might have gone 3-1 against New York during the regular season, but like the Lynx, the Liberty have elevated their game in the postseason.

“The fact that we have worked so hard and we genuinely like each other so much makes it sweeter. It makes you want to win for them, too. It’s not just you want to get the accolade of winning a championship; you want to do it for your teammates as well,” Collier said. “We want to keep playing because we want to stay together. We know every year looks different. This team will never be the exact same again. Not only do we want to win a championship, but we don’t want to leave each other yet. And that’s a great feeling.”

Said Reeve: “We’re happy that we’re going to the finals. But we’re not going to be just happy to be there.”

(Photo of Courtney Williams and Napheesa Collier: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)

Giancarlo Stanton has established himself as one of the New York Yankees’ best postseason hitters in modern history. With a game-winning home run against the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday night, Stanton helped lift the Yankees to a 2-1 series lead in American League Division Series. 

Stanton also lifted himself into an exclusive postseason hitting category with the franchise’s most iconic player. Stanton’s solo home run in the eighth inning that gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead marked his 12th career postseason homer, in just 108 at-bats. That gave Stanton a career postseason at-bat per home run ratio of 9.4. It is the second-best in MLB history, just below Yankees legend Babe Ruth who has the best ratio at 8.6. Stanton and Ruth are the only two players with a ratio lower than 10. 

“It’s the biggest moments, you got to be ready for it, you got to want it,” Stanton said after the game about how he has hit so well in the playoffs. “You’re not always going to be successful, but you can’t be shocked in the big moments.”

However, all of Ruth’s postseason homers occurred in the World Series, as it was the only postseason series when he played in the 1920s and 30s. All of Stanton’s postseason home runs have come in earlier rounds, as the Yankees haven’t reached the World Series yet with him on the team. 

FRANCISCO LINDOR’S GRAND SLAM VS. PHILLIES LIFTS METS INTO NLCS

Giancarlo Stanton #27 of the New York Yankees looks on during Game 1 of the ALCS between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park on Wednesday, October 9, 2022 in Houston, Texas.  (Logan Riely/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

Stanton finished the game with three hits, two RBI a run scored and even a rare stolen base. When Stanton stole second base in the sixth inning, it marked his first stolen base of the season and his first since August of 2020. 

“He wasn’t holding me on, and he was slow to the plate,” Stanton said of how he stole the base off of Royals pitcher John Schreiber. 

Meanwhile, fellow Yankees star slugger and captain Aaron Judge finished the game 0-for-4 with a strikeout to bring his 2024 postseason batting average down to .091. Judge now owns the worst strikeout rate in MLB postseason history with 34.3%. 

Now, with a 2-1 series lead, the Yankees are just one win away from eliminating Kansas City and advancing to the American League Championship Series. 

New York’s ace pitcher Gerrit Cole is set to take the mound in Game 4 on Thursday as the Yankees will look to close out the series without having to return home to play Game 5. 

If the Yankees do end up winning on Thursday, they will have home-field advantage in the championship series for the first time since 2012. 

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Manchester City have won the Premier League four times in a row and are unbeaten after seven matches this season.

But they are more likely to be relegated than Brighton & Hove Albion, Fulham and West Ham United, according to bookmakers.

City are 12/1 to be relegated this season, with Arsenal and Liverpool, their two most prominent domestic rivals, priced at 2,000/1 to drop into the Championship.

This has nothing to do with their consecutive draws against Arsenal and Newcastle United, nor is it down to Rodri being out for the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury he sustained against Arsenal in September.

There is no correlation between what they are producing on the pitch and the possibility of them playing in the English Football League next year.

Betting companies have shifted their odds due to City’s legal dispute with the Premier League — concerning the 100-plus charges levelled against the club — and the prospect of a significant points deduction if they are found guilty.

“From an industry point of view, the usual way of forming your relegation odds is to take the title odds and flip them the other way,” explains Alan Alger, a gambling consultant. “This is the first time it hasn’t happened.

“It is unprecedented that you would have a very short price for the title and then also what is a relatively short price for relegation. That can only be because the threat of relegation exists because of a relegation sanction or because of a big enough points deduction that puts them in the mix to be relegated.”

What is the latest regarding Manchester City’s 115 charges?

The hearing that will decide whether City broke any of the Premier League’s financial rules started on September 16 and is taking place in London.

It took more than 18 months to get to this stage, with the Premier League announcing the charges in February 2023. The hearing is expected to last around two and a half months.

The club is accused of multiple alleged breaches of a financial nature, including accusations they injected revenue by inflating sponsorship deals, while also hiding some costs by not declaring certain salaries and image-rights payments.

The charges range from failing to provide accurate financial information, breaching the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules, failing to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigations, not providing accurate details for player and manager payments and not complying with UEFA’s FFP regulations.

When a verdict is delivered, City and the Premier League can mount an appeal if they are unhappy with the decision. City have maintained their innocence and strenuously deny all the charges.

How has this impacted their relegation odds?

Ordinarily, Manchester City, like Liverpool and Arsenal, would be priced at 2,000/1 to be relegated. This is a general price that makes clear bookmakers think there is no chance of it happening.

But in May, the market shifted and serious thought needed to be given to the likelihood of City receiving a points deduction that could lead to relegation.

“We were the first out in the industry in putting a price on Manchester City,” explains Bet365’s Steve Freeth. “We discussed whether we should offer a price because, quite clearly, the liabilities running out on 2,000/1 would be astronomical.

“It was a case of some heads getting together, putting our fingers in the air and saying, ‘What’s going to happen to Manchester City and how do we see it?’, because it is so extreme.

“The price we fell on was 33/1 because you can’t know whether they will get nothing at all or be deducted 100 points. We went out in the market on May 19 with 33/1 and it has been a steady flow of business ever since.”

Manchester City vs the Premier League

Are people placing bets on City being relegated?

Yes, which is why their odds have shortened from 33/1 to 12/1.

“The kind of people backing it are your regular punters in the street, placing bets of £1, £5 and £10,” says Freeth. “They are the sorts of bets we are laying.

“We are laying quite a considerable amount of those bets, hence why the price has dropped from 33/1 to 12/1 over those months.”

Freeth noted that Bet365 has “built liabilities into seven figures”, meaning if City are relegated this season, their payout to customers totals more than £1million.

“We have to protect ourselves because it is such a volatile situation and that’s why we haven’t been offering 2,000/1,” Freeth adds. “Manchester City could win the next 10 games on the bounce but the 12/1 price wouldn’t move a great deal. It is not about results on the pitch, it is about results in the courtroom.”

City have been in good form in the Premier League but this will not impact odds (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

“It is purely a case of bookmakers protecting against the chance of a large points deduction that puts them in the relegation market,” Alger says. “And in such a high-percentage market in terms of profit for bookmakers, because you have 20 teams and three winners, you can overload the percentage and there is no upside in going 500/1 for Manchester City.

“But the fact you can go 12/1 and only take a small amount of margin out of your overall market, there is no upside to going any bigger than those prices because you won’t get any prizes for doing so. As the season plays out, you will continue to see them at a false price for relegation in terms of the chance of it happening.”

Have legal cases influenced sports betting markets before?

Everton and Nottingham Forest received points deductions last season, which has helped inform bookmakers on how to price in legal cases and potential punishments for relegation odds.

However, the cases involving Everton and Nottingham Forest pale compared to what has been levelled at City by the Premier League.

“Sometimes you can get a steer but there is such little information out there about the City case,” Freeth explains. “There was a steer last season that Everton would get a deduction of some sort, so that wasn’t as difficult to model. We didn’t think Everton would get more than 10 points, likewise Nottingham Forest.

“But just like everyone else, we haven’t got a clue (regarding Manchester City). That made us better prepared last season, but we have to stay vigilant and manage accordingly.”

Has a potential points deduction impacted City’s odds of winning a fifth consecutive title?

Pep Guardiola’s side are no longer favourites to win the Premier League, with Arsenal being viewed by bookmakers as the most likely club to end the season on top.

“The difference between being 4/7 favourites and then being 8/11 favourites at the start of the season, it looks minimal, but the percentage difference is about the same as the difference between 12/1 and 500/1 for relegation,” Alger says.

And, according to Freeth, people are still backing City to win the league, with the market most recently being impacted by Rodri’s season-ending injury, as well as Kevin De Bruyne missing the last three matches through injury.

(Top photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images)