Aaron Donald has made no public pronouncements that he will remain retired or return to play for the Rams.

But the three-time NFL defensive player of the year and future Hall of Famer remains a hot topic, and Rams players are aware of the buzz.

“When you have a guy that’s that serious about even considering coming out, it’s like, ‘OK, we might have a chance,’” safety Quentin Lake said Monday after the Rams completed an organized-team activity workout.

Chatter about Donald, 35, has been rampant since last week, when the Rams made another gigantic offseason move by trading for defensive end Myles Garrett.

The possibility of pairing Donald with Garrett — a two-time defensive player of the year — continues to intrigue both in and out of the Rams’ facility.

Like Lake, defensive lineman Kobie Turner insistently cautioned that whatever Donald decides to do or not do was his former teammate’s prerogative.

But the possibilities…

“To just have two historic, if you will, defensive players on that line together,” Turner said of pairing Donald and Garrett, “and to have the rest of us who are trying to build up our reputations, and to build to that level of greatness that they’ve been able to garner, I think that would be cool for L.A.”

Said defensive coordinator Chris Shula: “Would love to have him back — with open arms.”

Shula enters his third season overseeing a defense remade by the March trade for All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie, the signing of cornerback Jaylen Watson and the trade for Garrett.

With or without Donald, the Rams are regarded as a favorite to win Super Bowl LXI, which will be played in February at SoFi Stadium.

But the Rams are not hoisting the Lombardi Trophy just yet, Lake said.

“Some people say if he were to come back, just hand the Lombardi to us on a silver platter — but that’s never the case,” Lake said. “Is he a fantastic player? Yes.

“Are there so many things we could do in terms of pressures and blitzes and all that stuff? Of course. … It would be a fun year, I’ll say that.”

With quarterback Matthew Stafford — the NFL most valuable player — back to lead the offense, and McDuffie and Watson solving the team’s greatest weakness, the Rams already were regarded among the favorites to play in the Super Bowl for the first time since winning Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium in 2022.

Then general manager Les Snead engineered the deal for Garrett, sending edge rusher Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round draft pick and future second- and third-round picks to the Cleveland Browns for a player who has 125 ½ sacks in nine seasons.

Lake, Turner and Shula lamented losing Verse — “a brother for life,” Turner said — but they have welcomed Garrett.

“You give a great player to get a great player,” Lake said, “and luckily, we’ve got arguably the best defensive player in the NFL. … We’re not asking Myles to do anything but just be himself.”

Last season, Garrett amassed an NFL season-record 23 sacks.

“We’re going to let him do what he does best,” Shula said, “and we all know exactly what he does best.”

McDuffie and Watson were part of Kansas City Chiefs teams that played in three consecutive Super Bowls, winning titles in 2023 and 2024. Those teams featured dominating pass rusher Chris Jones, so McDuffie knows how a player such as Garrett enables the defense to “flip the script” and attack offenses.

“You just talk about mentality,” McDuffie said, “and a swag.”

Donald, who has 111 sacks, would certainly add to that.

Not every player in their mid-30s could return and play at a high level after sitting out two seasons.

“I don’t think you do that if you’re a normal person,” Turner said, chuckling. “But A.D.’s not a normal person.”

This year’s NBA Finals is a rematch of the last time the Knicks made it to the championship series, way back at the conclusion of the 1998-99 season. 

In that Finals, the Spurs defeated the Knicks in five games. Now, New York gets a shot to get its lick back, nearly 30 years later. 

Regardless, whichever team wins this series will need huge performances from its star players. 

Let’s check out the odds for NBA Finals MVP as of June 8 at FanDuel Sportsbook. 

This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.

2025-26 NBA Finals MVP

Jalen Brunson: +115 (bet $10 to win $21.50 total)
Karl-Anthony Towns: +165 (bet $10 to win $26.50 total)
Victor Wembanyama: +380 (bet $10 to win $48 total)

Before the Finals began, anyone not named Wembanyama or Brunson didn’t appear to have much of a chance at this award, at least according to the early odds. 

However, now that New York is up 2-0, its second star, Karl-Anthony Towns, has crashed the party.

Towns has moved to second on the board after playing Wemby to a standstill through two games. In Game 2, KAT had 21 points (8-for-12 shooting), 13 rebounds and four assists. The Knicks won by one. 

Brunson put up 20 points in Game 2, but was 7-for-25 from the field. He also had four turnovers.

Wembanyama finished Game 1 with 26 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. In Game 2, he had 29 points, nine rebounds and four blocks. 

There’s no crying in baseball, but Kim Ng works in softball now. And as commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, the former Dodgers assistant general manager has been fielding lots of tearful feedback from fans overcome by the fact that softball players finally, finally have a big league of their own.

“I can’t even tell you the number of people that have approached me, just openly sobbing with happiness,” she said. “It’s been incredible, experiencing all of that and understanding how long people have been waiting for something like this.”

It really is like that. Ask Lisa Fernandez, softball pioneer and total boss: “I’ll be watching and get emotional, just looking at how far this game has come.”

With MLB backing the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, or AUSL, for a second season and Ng back to steer it, sustainable professional softball is starting to feel real.

Fernandez remembers when it was a huge deal to get one softball game on TV, and now ESPN will broadcast 50 AUSL games and ABC will carry the championship. And after last year’s four-team 10-city barnstorming tour, the league will add two teams and anchor itself to locations in North Carolina, Illinois, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Utah.

The ball gets rolling on Tuesday, just days after the conclusion of the Women’s College World Series — which last season averaged a record 1.3 million viewers on ESPN, including pulling 3.9 million for UCLA’s thriller against Tennessee.

Big steps, baby steps. All going the right direction.

“I would hope that we are the major league baseball of softball,” Ng, 57, said in a phone conversation. “That is a good number of teams, spread out across the country, with a huge following, all of our games televised.

“That’s the goal. To be the MLB of softball.”

Ng spent more than 30 years in the MLB, including a decade-long stint with the Dodgers. She was also the first woman to serve as a big-league general manager, leading the Miami Marlins from 2020 through the 2023 season. She declined her option after the team made its first full-season playoff appearance in two decades and then announced plans to introduce a president of baseball operations position that would’ve siphoned away some of her say-so.

Miami Marlins general manger Kim Ng, left, sits in a golf cart and talks with manager Marlins Skip Schumaker during a 2023 spring training workout.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

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“Breaking that glass ceiling, that’s special to me,” Ng said. “But I think in a different way, this [work with the AUSL] is for sure one of the more meaningful things I’ve done.”

She said a former MLB colleague recently asked her about the AUSL: “I said, ‘I’m working for the women now.’”

The former co-worker corrected her: “You were always working for the women.’”

Before that, as a kid, she was a softball infielder in Long Island and then at the University of Chicago. “I was scrappy,” Ng said, “which is definitely how I describe my personality and the way I approach most things in life.”

It’s served her well. And now it’s serving softball, a sport that for decades has been among the most popular for girls in America, even without long-term playing prospects or pro players to strive to emulate.

Compare it with basketball: About three-quarters of the WNBA’s current players have never even lived in a world without an established professional women’s basketball league in America.

UCLA star hitter Megan Grant will play in the Athletes Unlimited softball league after wrapping up her record-setting college career.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

The NBA-backed WNBA is celebrating its 30th season this summer with a lucrative new CBA and 15 teams, two of them expansion franchises, including one in Canada, and the Bay Area-based Golden State Valkyries valued at $850 million.

The AUSL is about to embark on Year 2.

There have been attempts to start up professional softball leagues before. Those weren’t just long shots, more like Megan Grant moonshots.

But now we have Bryanna Lopez, a 12-year-old catcher from Alhambra, sitting in the Easton Stadium stands at UCLA, watching her heroes play and telling me, without hesitation: “I want to play professional softball. It’s a really big dream.”

And a really big deal.

For players and a growing audience of folks like Kaitlyn Laabs, the superfan in a chef’s hat at UCLA games, who want to watch the home run queen Grant continue to mash. To see her teammates Jordan Woolery keep flaunting her flashy slash line and Taylor Tinsley sharpening her wicked arsenal of pitches.

UCLA starting pitcher Taylor Tinsley and first baseman Jordan Woolery are poised to start their professional softball careers this week.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

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“A lot of times, seniors come in their last year thinking it’s the end of their career, and that puts a lot more pressure,” UCLA’s Woolery said earlier this month, before the Bruins advanced to the Women’s College World Series for the third straight season. “So, for me, Megan, Tins, [the AUSL] opens us up a little bit to play free, knowing it’s not the end of the road.”

Ng’s presence, first as an adviser and starting last season as commissioner, is helping legitimize the new league.

“She’s the right person at the right time,” said Fernandez, the UCLA associate head coach, who is also the general manager of the defending champion Utah Talons. “Knowing Kim’s background in baseball, having her know the business of how to run a league, a no-brainer for me.”

Ng’s team-building acumen is helping her coach up first-time general managers. Her experience at MLB’s league office, working to grow the game internationally, ensures she’ll be patient, methodical — which is to say, the AUSL is not rushing to join the Sparks and the National Women’s Soccer League’s Angel City FC in the complicated, competitive L.A. market until it’s good and ready.

“Softball just has had its ups and downs in terms of creating a solid foundation,” Ng said. “Why has it taken so long? It’s hard to say, but obviously the revenue is a huge piece of it. Now, with MLB as a major investor, they’re understanding of the idea that we’re complementary.”

MLB has invested a reported $10 million in the AUSL — in addition to offering its massive promotional platform. So after Grant hit an NCAA record-extending 39th home run, the No. 4 overall pick was interviewed by Harold Reynolds on “MLB Tonight.”

Beside Grant, who is bound for the Portland Cascade, there will be 12 other former Bruins sprinkled among the league’s six rosters. Woolery and Tinsley will team up with a few other former Bruins on the Talons.

“You’d lose a generation of players if the growth is capped,” said Laabs, the softball fan. “But right now, softball is on a rocket ship. Let’s keep on cooking, let’s keep on flying, let’s show that if you build it, they will come.”