Sports

Lindsey Horan just wants to talk soccer

Published

5 months ago

February 3, 2024

It’s USWNT captain Lindsey Horan’s final morning in the States before a flight back to France to rejoin Lyon, her club team. She’s spending it in a hotel lobby, tucked away at a table, talking to The Athletic for an hour about her time leading a team in the spotlight, how she sees her role during this time of transition, and one thing above all:

“Can we think about the football?”

Horan was speaking almost exactly five months since being named by then-USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski as captain of the national team alongside Alex Morgan (Horan has been getting the armband when both are on the field at the same time). The role is the fulfillment of a life goal, but also seems like a natural outcome, given how often, and how intensely, she thinks about the game.

Her first five months in that leadership role were full of notable exits: her team’s from the World Cup, Andonovski’s, and the retirements of Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz. It was capped with a big addition: U.S. Soccer’s announced hiring of Emma Hayes as head coach.

Horan, now 29 years old and with 139 senior national team caps under her belt, is part of an in-between camp: too experienced to be a newcomer, and too new to be on the way out. It’s her generation – which also includes Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and others – that must keep the team’s signature fire, that USWNT DNA, burning even as the team undergoes a serious re-think after its worst ever World Cup finish.

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“We have to continue that,” she says of herself and fellow in-betweeners. “You have to be amongst this team for a while to know what the f— that takes… it’s one of the most competitive national teams to be a part of.”

No one on the team is talking about starting from scratch. It’s just that they need more ways to win. More than mentality or fitness levels, more than a never-say-die approach. That’s what Horan said her early conversations with Hayes have been about. And that’s why she wants to talk about football, and how the USWNT can bounce back — not just by playing better, but by thinking more.

“We’ve been so successful for so long in a certain way that we play, that attack and transition,” Horan says. “We’ve had individual brilliance. We’ve had soccer players on the field and real players that want to play and it all kind of meshed together or it would always work out, or our DNA would take us to this place where we come out on top because our mentality was so f—ing good.”

The game is changing, and Horan recognizes this. She praises Portugal’s level of play at the World Cup, the investment into the game in Spain and other European countries, and the high level of up-and-coming U.S. talent (specifically citing 19-year-old San Diego Wave forward Jaedyn Shaw). If there was a theme for Horan and the rest of the USWNT in that final camp of the year, it was a repetitive one: no one actually knows the ceiling of this team.

Horan cited Shaw as an exciting young player for the U.S. (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)

“Even in these past few games, you see little glimpses of that, but it’s the final product, continuing to do that throughout the game, getting everyone on the same page, not just four or five players,” she says. “If you can develop that more, and it’s inherent in every single player on the team, you’re looking to play the combinations, all of these things? No idea what this team can do.

“Then you have the mentality aspect on top of it, where if the football is not going well, we know that we can freakin’ go. We have players on the field that are faster, stronger, capable in behind, and we’re gonna gut it out, right? The world is going to be very fearful.”

Those words could cause a stir. In 2019, Ali Krieger suggested the USWNT substitutes could take on and beat multiple other teams at the World Cup, and it was a massive point of contention for a team that got plenty more criticism from across American culture even as it was celebrated for its third consecutive title.

“We have to be one of the most talked about teams,” Horan says. “We’re always in the magnifying glass on every single thing we do or anything we say.”

Individual players can bear the brunt of that magnifying glass just as much as the team can. There’s a clear, though understandable, vein of frustration from Horan over how her own performances are understood, even from the USWNT’s own fanbase. To illustrate her point, Horan brings up that many viewers will take a television commentator’s analysis at face value.

“American soccer fans, most of them aren’t smart,” she says. “They don’t know the game. They don’t understand. (But) it’s getting better and better.”

She takes a brief pause, sensing that those words, too, will cause a stir.

“I’m gonna piss off some people,” she continues, “but the game is growing in the U.S. People are more and more knowledgeable, but so much of the time people take what the commentators say, right? My mom does it!” She breaks into laughter. “My mom says, ‘Julie Foudy said you had such a good game!’ And I’m here, just going, ‘I was f—ing s— today.’”

When playing with Lyon in France, Horan says, things are different.

“From what I’ve heard, people understand my game a little bit more, a sense of my football and the way I play,” she says. “It is the French culture. Everyone watches football. People know football.”

None of that, though, compares to Horan’s experience at the 2023 World Cup. The outside commentary, including from her own former teammate Carli Lloyd, the entrances into stadiums in their custom suits; the tone used in interviews; the body language. Everything was scrutinized. This time, though, the talk was accompanied by bad performances, and bad results.

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Horan says she wasn’t bothered by the outside criticism, but noted no one else but the players could understand what it was like to be on that team. Ultimately, she says it felt “perfectly fine” that people would find something to talk about.

“If you’re not backing it up on the field, people are gonna come and talk s— about what you’re doing, where your priorities are,” she says. “Like, ‘Are you getting ready for the game? Are you caring more about this s—?’”

Horan has leaned on Lavelle (left) to help lead a team in transition (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Horan, again, comes back to a small, seemingly innocuous detail: The traditional pre-match starting XI photo. In the NWSL, more and more teams have started using the occasion for various hijinks; something that Horan’s European teammates bring up as an example of Americans not taking their business seriously. It’s clear that it gets under her skin, too.

“I want professionalism,” she admits. “Those little things, they really irked me. I don’t think I could do it, and maybe I’m wrong in saying that, I don’t know. It just bothers me. We put so much into this game, and it’s just like a joke sometimes.”

She’s quick to point out she’s not going to be the one who shuts it down if it works for others. That’s not what she’s trying to say. It’s just that, ultimately, for her, it’s about the football.

“We need to get back to the football. The football is the most important thing” Horan says. “So maybe we should knock some of the s— out for now. We need to focus on the game, we need to focus on being the absolute best we can be.”

As captain, Horan can help enact that. It’s a role she’s clearly grown into, even as she has struggled to understand it in the months between Andonovski’s exit and Hayes’ hiring.

Hayes hasn’t officially started yet, and won’t coach in games until after her job as Chelsea’s head coach ends along with the European season in May. But Hayes’ December visit with Horan and the rest of the team helped clarify the process, Horan says. It also gave Horan a chance to open up the lines of communication, to admit that sometimes she didn’t feel like she had full control, that she hadn’t been handed the reins.

“I always felt like I was someone that could really touch on every single player and get the best out of them and try to make them the best that they could be,” Horan says. “I’m not going to be like the rah-rah speeches, all that nonsense. Becky (Sauerbrunn) and me are probably a little similar in that. I’m probably a little more crazy on the field. I want to make sure I’m the leader that I want to be, and no one’s trying to make me something else.”

Before Andonovski gave her the armband — a move made in part because longtime captain Sauerbrunn missed the World Cup due to a lingering foot injury — Horan told him that getting the armband wouldn’t change her, or how players could talk to her. What it would change, she told him, is the tone it would set. She wanted to be a role model.

“I’m not going to be a coach’s captain, I’m going to be a players’ captain,” she told Andonovski. So if that wasn’t what he wanted, then he shouldn’t make her a captain.

Horan has lived up to her word since interim head coach Twila Kilgore stepped in, leaning on Morgan, Lavelle and Sonnett to make them part of the transitional process. She has empowered the team’s relative newcomers, too. The normally-reticent 23-year-old center back Naomi Girma said Horan “encouraged me just to find my voice.”

“A lot of these new young players are going to have big freaking roles, even in this Olympics,” Horan says. “How the hell do we get the best out of them to go put us on the podium? It’s been a crazy place, but this is a really exciting role for me because I’ve felt like this is what I’m meant to do.”

The team has four months until Hayes takes over, and six until the Olympics. The sprint is very much on for this massive group project to re-establish the team at the top, before looking ahead to 2027 and a World Cup that could be hosted at home. Every voice matters to Horan, from Horan to Lavelle to Morgan to Girma to Shaw and beyond.

“We need to be doing everything we possibly can to be improving, to make each other better, holding the standards,” Horan says. “We need to change every bit of culture that we had prior to the last World Cup and going into this Olympics because we need to win. And that starts now.”

(Photo: James Gilbert/Getty Images)

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Sports

Kenny Smith says Charles Barkley 'never' told him he was retiring, questions why he didn't thank cohosts

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

Kenny Smith says Charles Barkley 'never' told him he was retiring, questions why he didn't thank cohosts

Charles Barkley’s retirement announcement came as a surprise to everybody, apparently, including his own cohosts on TNT.

The Hall of Famer made the revelation on NBA TV following Game 4 of the NBA Finals, saying that the 2024-25 season would be his last.

However, the announcement was unprovoked, Kenny Smith said.

Charles Barkley, right, and Kenny Smith look on before the game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Los Angeles Lakers as part of the 2023 NBA In-Season Tournament on Dec. 7, 2023 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. (Mike Kirschbaum/NBAE via Getty Images)

“He never called me. He never told me,’” Smith told the New York Post. “He still hasn’t called me and told me, ‘Kenny, I’m retiring.’”

Barkley said that regardless of whether TNT is able to continue broadcasting games beyond next season, he intends to “pass on the baton.”

“There’s been a lot of noise around our network the last few months. And I just want to say, I’ve talked to all the other networks, but I ain’t going nowhere other than TNT. But I have made the decision myself, no matter what happens, next year is going to be my last year on television,” Barkley said.

Charles Barkley looks on during Capital One’s The Match IX at The Park West Palm on Feb. 26, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images for The Match)

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“And I just want to say thank you to my NBA family, you guys have been great to me,” he continued. “My heart is full with joy and gratitude, but I’m going to pass the baton at the end of next year. I hope the NBA stays with TNT, but for me personally, I wanted you guys to hear it from me personally, because I’m not doing anymore interviews.”

Throughout the announcement, Barkley did not thank his partners in Smith, Ernie Johnson or Shquille O’Neal, which Smith seems to have taken issue with.

“I was just surprised he didn’t thank me, Ernie [Johnson] and Shaq. You’re going to retire and not thank us?” he said.

TNT is on the verge of losing out on the NBA after nearly four decades of coverage, and Barkley’s criticism of TNT’s big wigs has been loud.

NBA Hall of Fame Charles Barkley, left, speaks with “Entertainment Tonight” host Kevin Frazier on the practice green before the start of the second practice round at the ACC Golf Championship presented by American Century Investments on July 7, 2022 at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Stateline, Nevada. (David Calvert/Getty Images for American Century Investments)

The current deals with ABC-ESPN and Turner Sports expire after next season, and the NBA has been talking with NBC, ESPN and Amazon, among other networks and platforms, about what will come next.

Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Sports

Rob Dillingham: From Ye's Donda Academy debacle to a probable NBA lottery pick

Published

4 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

Rob Dillingham: From Ye's Donda Academy debacle to a probable NBA lottery pick

The names leap from the hardwood: Willie Naulls, Gail Goodrich, Marques Johnson, Paul Pierce, Baron Davis, Tyson Chandler, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Paul Pierce, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holiday.

That’s a fair sample of the greatest basketball players to come from Southland high schools.

Rob Dillingham could join them, with a prominent asterisk. The exceptionally quick guard from Kentucky is expected to be a lottery pick in the NBA draft Wednesday.

Yet even the most rabid followers of high school hoops could be excused for not recognizing Dillingham’s connection to the greater Los Angeles area. He’s not a local in the traditional sense, such as Jared McCain — the Times Player of the Year in 2023 with Corona Centennial High. McCain, who spent one year at Duke, is expected to be taken in the middle of the first round.

But Dillingham?

He was the marquee player at the Donda Academy, the short-lived basketball mill and K-12 private Christian school owned and operated by rapper Ye — formerly Kanye West. Donda, named after Ye’s mother, opened in the fall of 2021 in Simi Valley, then moved to an industrial park in Chatsworth before closing early in 2023.

Donda parents, faculty and staff were required to sign a nondisclosure agreement and refrain from publicly discussing the school’s practices and any other details that were not public.

“People choose to bring their kids to Donda Academy for a sense of privacy,” Malik Yusef, a producer and longtime collaborator of Ye’s, told Rolling Stone in September 2022. “A sense of care, a sense of concern, a sense of love, an environment of health, and an environment of wealth, an environment of learning, and putting God as a focus.”

Ye torpedoed the star-studded Donda Doves basketball team, however, and then the entire academy by making repeated antisemitic rants, the final straw a podcast interview with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman in which he made reckless and ridiculously false statements about the Holocaust, abortion and Jewish people.

His hate speech already had cost him deals with talent agency CAA, fashion label Balenciaga and sportswear giant Adidas. The podcast interview prompted several prominent national basketball showcases and tournaments to drop the Doves, who in short order had their entire season schedule gutted.

The team disbanded and Dillingham, who already had committed to enroll at Kentucky in the fall of 2023, never played in front of an L.A. crowd in a traditional high school gym and never studied in a traditional high school classroom.

Rather than transfer to another high school, he opted to relocate to Atlanta and play for Overtime Elite, a quasi-professional operation for 16- to 20-year-olds that, according to the New York Times, “provides health and disability insurance and sets aside $100,000 in college scholarship money for each player if they decide not to pursue professional basketball afterwards.”

The decision proved worthwhile for Dillingham’s development. Overtime Elite held as many as three practices a day in a facility that included practice courts, a weight room, training room and space for classes. When he left, he was prepared for the rigors of Division I basketball.

Dillingham maintained the silence he learned at Donda and did not consent to interviews at Overtime Elite. However, teammate Kanaan Carlyle, now a star at Stanford who has known Dillingham since fifth grade, told the Lexington Herald-Leader in 2022, “I’ve seen Rob grow, from little Rob with a big afro to now he’s getting ready to go to Kentucky. It’s been amazing to see him grow over time.”

At Kentucky, Dillingham began talking to reporters and established that he is upbeat and confident without coming off as brash. During one postgame interview, he and coach John Calipari traded opinions about each other.

The season had gotten off to a rocky start, with Dillingham not playing much in exhibitions held in Canada. By midseason he was showing improvement and by season’s end he was selected Southeastern Conference sixth man of the year while averaging 15.6 points.

“Since Canada until now, our relationship grew so much,” Dillingham said of Calipari. “He shows me he has confidence in me. He still lets me rock, but at the same time he wants me to probe and make smarter decisions.

“I’m just thankful for him. He helps me while he lets me be me.”

Calipari, sitting next to Dillingham, spoke next: “You are coaching a kid who can create space and get a basket when he wants to. Do you clip his wings? You can’t. You got to let him go.

“But, I give him two [mistakes] in a half. The third one,” Calipari said, turning to Dillingham, “you are coming out.”

Dillingham always was considered a one-and-done player, destined for the NBA as soon as possible. He is one of four Kentucky players expected to be drafted, joining Reed Sheppard, Justin Edwards and Antonio Reeves.

Times basketball writer Dan Woike’s mock draft has Dillingham going to the Utah Jazz with the 10th pick, saying, “The Jazz have time, ammunition with future draft picks and needs in their backcourt. Dillingham is an explosive offensive player with quick hands on defense. He’s small, but lightning fast.”

Other mock drafts have him going as high as No. 8 to the San Antonio Spurs. He is undersized, measuring 6-foot-1 without shoes, and weighing 164 pounds at the NBA combine. Dillingham didn’t allow the disaster at Donda to derail his dreams, and soon he can prove he belongs alongside the best.

Sports

Knicks reunite Mikal Bridges with Villanova teammates in blockbuster trade with Nets: reports

Published

11 hours ago

June 25, 2024

Press Room

Knicks reunite Mikal Bridges with Villanova teammates in blockbuster trade with Nets: reports

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There’s just something the New York Knicks love about those Villanova products in the NBA.

The Knicks have reportedly struck a trade with the Brooklyn Nets to bring Mikal Bridges, a former teammate of Knicks stars, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo during their time at Villanova, to Madison Square Garden in a blockbuster deal.

In this first trade between both teams since 1983, the Knicks will send veteran forward Bogdan Bogdanovic, four unprotected first-round picks, one protected first-round pick via the Milwaukee Bucks, an unprotected pick swap and a second-round pick in exchange for Bridges, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Jalen Brunson #11 and Josh Hart #3 of the New York Knicks talk to Mikal Bridges #1 of the Brooklyn Nets after the game on March 23, 2024 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Knicks saw exactly what former college teammates could do on the floor together in the NBA last season, as Brunson, DiVincenzo and Hart all had stellar campaigns during the team’s playoff run.

Now, Bridges reunites with teammates he won multiple NCAA national titles with during his college days.

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Bridges’ reaction was likely that of all Knicks fans, as he posted on social media.

“This is crazy lol,” Bridges simply posted on X.

Bridges, the 10th overall pick of the 2018 NBA Draft who was traded by the Philadelphia 76ers to the Phoenix Suns on draft night, has developed into a star with the Nets since he was dealt before the deadline in the 2022-23 campaign.

He jumped from 17.2 points per game to 26.1 over 27 contests that season as a Net, and last year’s production was solid as well.

Mikal Bridges #25 of the Villanova Wildcats grabs a rebound in front of teammates Donte DiVincenzo #10 and Jalen Brunson #1 against the Providence Friars at the Wells Fargo Center on January 23, 2018, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Bridges averaged 19.6 points per game with 4.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.0 steals, while shooting 43.6% from the field over all 82 regular-season games.

The Philly native, who was a 2021-22 All-Defensive team honoree, figures to slot right into the starting lineup alongside his Villanova brothers, including the All-Star Brunson who exploded for an All-NBA nod after averaging a career-high 28.7 points per contest.

The news of Bridges’ addition comes as OG Anunoby, the Knicks’ traded-for wing last season, reportedly opted out of his contract and decided to test free agency.

Bridges, at 6-foot-6, has the ability to guard just about any player on the floor, and head coach Tom Thibodeau loves players with that extra hustle, which he provides every night.

New York is clearly a win-now team after going 50-32 last season to earn the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. But they’ve lost in the conference semifinals in back-to-back seasons, so adding another playmaker who can thrive on both ends of the floor was paramount for their squad this offseason.

Mikal Bridges #1 of the Brooklyn Nets celebrates after making a shot in the third quarter against the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on April 01, 2024, in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

That box is checked with the addition of Bridges, who shouldn’t have any trouble getting acclimated with his new team.

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