Former NBA All-Star and No. 1 pick John Wall retires after 11 seasons originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

John Wall has called it a career.

The five-time NBA All-Star officially announced his retirement after 11 NBA seasons with a video posted to social media on Tuesday.

“Today, I’m stepping off of the court, but not away from the game,” Wall said. “Basketball will always be in my life, and new opportunities present themselves. I feel now is the time to walk confidently into my next chapter.”

The Washington Wizards selected Wall first overall in the 2010 NBA Draft after he played one electrifying season at the University of Kentucky. He played nine seasons with the Wizards before being traded to the Houston Rockets in a deal that sent Russell Westbrook to Washington. Wall’s last NBA season came in 2022-23, when he played 34 games for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Wall made the NBA All-Rookie first team in 2010-11 while finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting. From there, he earned his first All-Star selection in 2013-14 and won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest the same year. He was named an Eastern Conference All-Star for five straight seasons through 2017-18.

Wall’s best season came in 2016-17, as he averaged career highs at 23.1 points and 10.7 assists per game while earning All-NBA third team honors and placing seventh in the NBA MVP race.

Injuries plagued the second half of Wall’s career. He missed two complete seasons: 2019-20 following a torn Achilles and 2021-22 with the Rockets after he reached an agreement not to play. Following his last All-Star season in 2017-18, Wall only played in 106 games over the next five years.

The Wizards congratulated Wall on his retirement, calling the point guard “one of our franchise all-time greats.”

Cleveland’s WNBA team has its first official hire. The team announced Tuesday it hired Allison Howard as its new president, per a press release.

Howard joins the team — which does not have a name yet — with plenty of experience. She currently serves as the executive vice president and chief commercial officer with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Prior to that, she served as the president of the Kansas City Current, an NWSL team. Howard joined the Current as the team’s first president as the expansion franchise prepped for its first season, which is the exact same situation she’ll be in with Cleveland’s new WNBA team.

Howard expressed excitement over her new role, saying she’s hoping to make the team “a source of pride for our city,” per the team’s statement.

The Cleveland WNBA franchise won’t start playing games until 2028, so Howard has multiple years to build the franchise. Given that timeline, Howard will remain in her current role with the Cavaliers through the 2025-26 NBA season before joining Cleveland’s WNBA organization.

In her role as president, Howard will be tasked with overseeing “all aspects of the franchise’s business operations,” per the team release. 

Howard isn’t the only new name joining the franchise. The team also announced the hiring of Kiersten Green, who will serve as the vice president of ticket sales and service. Tamzin Barroilhet will join the franchise as its senior vice president of corporate partnerships and commercial strategy.

The WNBA announced Cleveland as an expansion franchise in June. The franchise is expected to begin play at Rocket Arena in Cleveland starting in 2028. 

Cleveland isn’t the only city that will welcome a WNBA franchise over the next couple years. Both Detroit and Philadelphia also received teams. Detroit will begin play in 2029 and Philadelphia will get under way the following season.

Cleveland’s WNBA team has its first official hire. The team announced Tuesday it hired Allison Howard as its new president.

Howard joins the team — which does not have a name yet — with plenty of experience. She currently serves as the executive vice president and chief commercial officer with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Prior to that, she served as the president of the Kansas City Current, an NWSL team. Howard joined the Current as the team’s first president as the expansion franchise prepped for its first season, which is the exact same situation she’ll be in with Cleveland’s new WNBA team.

Howard expressed excitement over her new role, saying she’s hoping to make the team “a source of pride for our city,” per the team’s statement.

The Cleveland WNBA won’t start playing games until 2028, so Howard has multiple years to build the franchise. Given that timeline, Howard will remain in her current role with the Cavaliers through the 2025-26 NBA season before joining Cleveland’s WNBA franchise.

In her role as president, Howard will be tasked with overseeing “all aspects of the franchise’s business operations,” per the team release. 

Howard isn’t the only new name joining the franchise. The team also announced the hiring of Kiersten Green, who will serve as the vice president of ticket sales and service. Tamzin Barroilhet will join the franchise as its senior vice president of corporate partnerships and commercial strategy.

The WNBA announced Cleveland as an expansion franchise in June. The franchise is expected to begin play at Rocket Arena in Cleveland starting in 2028. 

Cleveland isn’t the only city that will welcome a WNBA franchise over the next couple years. Both Detroit and Philadelphia also received teams. Detroit will begin play in 2029 and Philadelphia will get under way the following season.

Cleveland’s WNBA team has its first official hire. The team announced Tuesday it hired Allison Howard as its new president.

Howard joins the team — which does not have a name yet — with plenty of experience. She currently serves as the executive vice president and chief commercial officer with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Prior to that, she served as the president of the Kansas City Current, an NWSL team. Howard joined the Current as the team’s first president as the expansion franchise prepped for its first season, which is the exact same situation she’ll be in with Cleveland’s new WNBA team.

Howard expressed excitement over her new role, saying she’s hoping to make the team “a source of pride for our city,” per the team’s statement.

The Cleveland WNBA won’t start playing games until 2028, so Howard has multiple years to build the franchise. Given that timeline, Howard will remain in her current role with the Cavaliers through the 2025-26 NBA season before joining Cleveland’s WNBA franchise.

In her role as president, Howard will be tasked with overseeing “all aspects of the franchise’s business operations,” per the team release. 

Howard isn’t the only new name joining the franchise. The team also announced the hiring of Kiersten Green, who will serve as the vice president of ticket sales and service. Tamzin Barroilhet will join the franchise as its senior vice president of corporate partnerships and commercial strategy.

The WNBA announced Cleveland as an expansion franchise in June. The franchise is expected to begin play at Rocket Arena in Cleveland starting in 2028. 

Cleveland isn’t the only city that will welcome a WNBA franchise over the next couple years. Both Detroit and Philadelphia also received teams. Detroit will begin play in 2029 and Philadelphia will get under way the following season.

Rick Carlisle has agreed to a multi-year extension with the Indiana Pacers, the team confirmed on Tuesday.

Carlisle, 65, led the Pacers to their first NBA Finals appearance since 2000, and their second all-time, this past season. In pursuit of their first NBA championship, they fell to the 68-win Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games.

Still, Carlisle piloted one of the more unexpected and memorable playoff runs in recent league history. In his fourth year leading the franchise, Indiana won 50 games and earned the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. A year removed from making a similar magical carpet ride to the Eastern Conference finals, the Pacers dazzled again and this time carried their mojo into June. 

Indiana knocked out the Milwaukee Bucks in five games, then ousted the conference’s top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in five more. While both the Bucks and Cavaliers dealt with injury issues, the run-and-gun Pacers proved they belonged in the upper echelon of the East with a collection of dominant wins and a few others that went down to the wire, when star point guard Tyrese Haliburton thrived and wowed.

Haliburton made a habit of delivering clutch shots in the postseason, ushering in dramatic victories and rendering an anonymous player poll from earlier in the year completely obsolete. The two-time All-Star was voted the “most overrated” player in the league. 

He flushed that narrative once more in the Eastern Conference finals with a game-tying, buzzer-beating bucket to force overtime against the New York Knicks in the series opener, and then again in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, thanks to a last-second, game-winning jumper that completed another comeback.

Indiana took care of the Knicks in six games, but Haliburton’s Achilles tear early in Game 7 of the NBA Finals was a gut punch to Indiana’s underdog effort.

The Pacers will be without Haliburton next season as he recovers from his devastating injury. They also won’t have longtime center Myles Turner, who surprisingly signed with the Bucks in free agency. 

But Indiana will have plenty of other pieces from the 2024-25 team and Carlisle at the helm.

Carlisle, who won an NBA championship as a player with the Boston Celtics in 1986, famously guided the Dallas Mavericks to a title in 2011. That Dirk Nowitzki-led, six-game triumph over the Miami Heat’s LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh took place in Carlisle’s third of 11 seasons coaching the Mavericks.

He took the Pacers job, for the second time in his career, ahead of the 2021-22 campaign, which started an expedited rebuild in Indiana. After winning a combined 60 games the first two seasons of his second go-around as the franchise’s head coach, the Pacers broke out in Year 3 with the first of their two straight Eastern Conference finals appearances.

Carlisle’s 81 playoff wins are currently tied for the 10th most all time among coaches in NBA history.

Arizona Diamondbacks star Ketel Marte apologized to his teammates on Monday after he missed a series against the St. Louis Cardinals after the All-Star break for personal reasons.

The incident was just the latest time that Marte has asked for an off day, which is something that has reportedly been causing issues within the Diamondbacks’ organization recently.

Marte flew back to his home in the Dominican Republic after the All-Star break and missed three games — which he said came after he was “frustrated” and “in a bad spot” after learning that his Arizona home had been burglarized during the break.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season]

The Diamondbacks then lost nine of their next 10 games when Marte rejoined the lineup. They then dealt several key players at the trade deadline and now sit at just 60-66 on the season after Monday’s 3-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians. That has them suddenly seven games out of the last wild-card spot in the National League.

“I know there’s an elephant in the room and I’ll just say what I want to say about it,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said, via The Associated Press. “I know that Ketel talked to you guys and I’m proud of him for doing that. That’s not easy for him to do. I know he showed some vulnerability and I’m really proud of him for digging in the way that he did.

“What I’ll say about Ketel are the things that I know — he’s a great teammate, he’s a great young man, he plays hard every single day for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He just wants to win baseball games. That’s it.”

Marte currently holds a .295 batting average with 56 RBI and 23 home runs this season. The 31-year-old has been a huge part of the Diamondbacks’ success in recent years, and he helped lead the franchise to their first World Series appearance since since 2001 in 2023.

“It’s over,” shortstop Geraldo Perdomo said of the situation, via The Athletic. “I want to put it behind us because we got baseball games we got to go out there and win. That’s our main focus.”

San Diego Padres manager Mike Shildt was tossed from their 4-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Monday night after he started arguing a fan interference call in the outfield.

Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts appeared to hit a home run to left field in the second inning of the contest at Petco Park on Monday night, though his ball just barely cleared the outfield wall. Giants left fielder Heliot Ramos nearly robbed it, but the ball very clearly bounced off his glove and into the stands.

A fan, however, also attempted to grab the ball right above Ramos’ glove as it was coming down. The fan missed and didn’t actually make contact with the ball, but Ramos still pointed and blamed the fan for the missed catch after the ball went out.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season]

Despite the fan appearing to completely miss the ball and Ramos, a review determined he had actually interfered with the play. That negated the home run and kept the Giants’ four-run lead in place.

Shildt came out to argue the outcome of the review, which led to his automatic ejection.

The Giants took off in the first inning on Monday night. Ramos and Rafael Devers each hit solo home runs to get the night started, and then Wilmer Flores hit a two-run shot of his own to give them the four-run lead early.

The Padres finally got on the board in the seventh after Bogaerts scored on an error and then Ryan O’Hearn hit a two-run shot to center. They were still a single run shy, however, and couldn’t quite complete the comeback after Bogaerts’ initial run was pulled off the board. 

The Padres have now lost four straight following a sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers, which sent them back into second place in the NL West standings. They now hold a 69-56 record. The Giants, on the other hand, now sit at 61-64 but are still solidly in third in the divisional race.