Sports
The 'humbling experience' of trying to shoot over Victor Wembanyama
Pat Connaughton knows what an open shot feels like. As a nine-year veteran of the league, he’s taken hundreds of them, developing a sense for space and when there’s enough of it.
In early January, when Connaughton’s Milwaukee Bucks played the San Antonio Spurs, Connaughton got that familiar feeling again. With about eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Giannis Antetokounmpo drew a double team and found Brook Lopez alone on the right wing. San Antonio’s Julian Champagnie, Connaughton’s defender, scrambled to cover him.
As Lopez caught Antetokounmpo’s pass, the Spurs player responsible for covering Champagnie’s rotation was 27 feet away, one foot in the paint and the other on the floor’s other side. Connaughton knew the swing-swing pass from Lopez would come and he usually only needs two or three feet of separation from a defender to get off his shot. In other words, Connaughton was open. The ball left his hands two seconds later.
Then, it suddenly died in the air.
“I wouldn’t have shot it if I thought he was going to be able to get it,” Connaughton said later.
Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 rookie phenom who had made the rotation from the corner, met the ball 12 feet and seven inches into the air.
“Every second counts when you’re playing against him, right? So the swing-swings have to be quicker, and when you think you’ve got enough space, you really don’t,” Connaughton said. “We talked about it after the game, it was impressive stuff.”
Wembanyama isn’t just breaking basketball, but the very perception of openness — of basketball physics — within the NBA. He has blocked seven 3s this season, far from the league’s lead, but what stands out is the manner in which he has disrupted the inevitability defenders used to feel.
“Have I had guys tell me this?” Wembanyama said when asked about his long closeouts. “Yeah, all the time. Sometimes during the game, sometimes after. But it happens.”
The NBA’s modern era is the result of an evolved understanding and war over space. There’s always been more of it out past the 3-point line than inside, but over the last decade, teams and players have started using that territory exponentially more than before. It’s been long enough since the beginning of Stephen Curry’s rise for player development and norms to adapt to the game’s massive upheaval.
Yet while players have extended the horizontal plane to create space, the vertical one has remained constant. At this level, every player knows what an open shot looks and feels like.
At least they did before Wembanyama.
“He’s taking that space back, for sure,” Spurs teammate Tre Jones said.
Phoenix Suns guard Grayson Allen, the league’s 3-point percentage leader, fell victim to Wembanyama in the season’s opening week. He felt like Wembanyama was between him and another defender, not fully committed to guarding him. But Wembanyama reached Allen’s shot anyway, something that has only happened one other time in Allen’s 421 attempts from behind the arc this season.
“He’s one of probably two guys in the NBA that can block it from where he was,” Allen said.
Allen’s right. Connaughton’s jumper was labeled “wide open,” which the league’s tracking metrics use to identify shots taken when the nearest defender is more than six feet away. Wembanyama is one of just two players — the other is Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert — who have blocked three such shots this season, said the Synergy Sports product designer who provided tracking data for this story, Todd Whitehead.
“Part of my job is to figure out what those labels should be,” Whitehead said. “So to have Wemby come and throw a wrench into what I’m trying to do, making something happen that seems like it’s physically impossible — it doesn’t really frustrate me, but it makes the data point seem like (it’s) wrong because he’s so unusual.”
According to Synergy data, 86 percent of the 3-pointers that Wembanyama has contested fall into that “wide open” label, one of the “worst” rates in the league. In other words, when opposing players take shots, he’s rarely considered “close” enough to them to affect them. But the league is shooting slightly less than 36 percent on “wide open” 3s that he has contested, noticeably lower than the 39.2 percent league average. In other words, a “wide open” 3 isn’t wide open when Wembanyama contests it.
Teams are, of course, aware of Wembanyama. Before the Dallas Mavericks faced San Antonio in the 2023-24 season opener, assistant coach God Shammgod strapped padded extensions to his arms in an amusing attempt to simulate the impossibly long-limbed French defender.
It’s official: Mavs are prepping for the Spurs, specifically 7-4 rookie Victor Wembanyama, with God Shammgod playing the role of Wemby. “Wemby! Wemby” he hollered while going out to defend Irving with his artificial Wemby length. pic.twitter.com/cKmgnP0M1n
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) October 21, 2023
And yet on the team’s opening possession, the first official shot attempted against Wembanyama came from Kyrie Irving, who pulled up for a 17-foot midrange jumper that was promptly blocked by the San Antonio debutant.
“I don’t mind that,” Irving said later, amused he was the first official victim of a Wembanyama block. “The right side of history.”
And that lesson, at least, stuck with Irving for the remainder of the game and consecutive matchups against the Spurs this season. Last month, he had a signature highlight finish over the lengthy big man.
What Irving learned in October was what Wembanyama’s teammates realized even sooner. Jones, the Spurs’ starting point guard, got a crash course in one of the team’s first open gym runs long before the season began. “I felt like I had an open look,” he said. “When we’re open, we pretty much know it.”
Dominick Barlow, the Spurs’ backup center, described the feeling of shooting near Wembanyama as a “humbling experience.”
“We’ve taken hundreds and thousands of open shots in our lives,” he said.
Barlow and Jones face an odd phenomenon: They try not to overadjust to Wembanyama’s presence, because being his teammate means they won’t have to face him in an actual game. Still, Wembanyama is an unavoidable presence in their minds whenever he’s wearing the other color of their scrimmage jerseys.
“The red light in your head goes off,” Jones said. “You definitely have the awareness when he’s around and know where he is at all times.”
Opponents aren’t so lucky. Irving said he passed up a shot similar to the blocked pull-up jumper later in the game to instead find a shooter nowhere near Wembanyama. Allen said he might just back up further. Connaughton thinks it might even require him to shoot differently.
“You got to take the Steph Curry moon ball,” he said.
Wembanyama’s shot blocking mostly happens at the rim, but these are the league’s best shooters all conveying a similar fear. Like many of the league’s best rim protectors, Wembanyama doesn’t only block shots, but also deters opponents from even attempting them. Yet Wembanyama is also doing the same thing on 3-point shots.
“When you get out there with him,” Irving said, “you’re a little bit more aware of his positioning.”
Over the past decade, as offensive players took up more and more of the floor’s space and used it to their advantage, defenders haven’t had much recourse. Jump shots have always held air superiority, using the space far above defenders’ reaches to avoid them.
But Wembanyama hasn’t only entered the league; he’s also launched himself to literal heights previously unreachable. And now, he’s at least one player fighting back.
“(He’s defying physics) as I did understand them,” Connaughton said. “Now I’m recalibrating.”
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(Photos: Mark Blinch, Ronald Cortes / Getty Images. Illustration by John Bradford / The Athletic)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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