Jared McCain was the early frontrunner for Rookie of the Year last season until a torn meniscus in December ended his season. This season, the 76ers are counting on him to take a step forward in his sophomore season as part of a promising young backcourt with Tyrese Maxey, Quentin Grimes (who is still negotiating his contract for this season) and No. 3 pick last June V.J. Edgecombe.
Now comes word that McCain will miss the start of the season with a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right thumb, the team announced.
This injury has hit other NBA players — most notably Paul George — and usually takes about a month to recover from.
Last season, McCain stood out to start the season, averaging 15.3 points, 2.6 assists, and 2.4 rebounds a game while shooting 38.3% from beyond the arc. He’s also a standout NBA player on social media, most recently because of a team photo of him looking like he was about to bench 10-pound weights. McCain had fun with that and posted a video of himself doing bicep curls with a 2.5-pound dumbbell.
That was funny. To Sixers fans his injury is not as this team has the potential to be a contender in a down East, but only if everyone stays healthy.
If anyone outside the Yankees clubhouse last week genuinely envisioned the AL East race up for grabs entering the final weekend of the season, their hopes couldn’t have been any higher. After all, the Blue Jays owned a commanding five-game lead for first place just 10 days ago.
But the window to a division title never closed for the Yankees. With four games left on the calendar, they’ve entered Thursday in a stunning deadlock with the Blue Jays atop the standings. While the head-to-head tiebreaker isn’t in their favor, they’ve defied expectations amidst chaos.
The Yankees (90-68) must finish one game better than the Blue Jays in order to steal the crown and clinch a first-round bye. What once seemed like too tall of an order is now easily attainable, and the satisfaction of already securing a postseason spot isn’t enough for Aaron Boone.
“I’ll take the bye all day long. It’s winning a series, essentially, without having to play one,” the Yankees’ manager said ahead of Thursday’s series finale with the White Sox. “We’ve seen teams come out of the wild-card situation and run the table. We’ve seen it the other way. But if you’re asking me if I get to choose, I’ll take the bye.”
It’s no surprise Boone prefers a shorter journey to the World Series. His team took this route last season as AL East champions and the top-overall seed, bypassing the best-of-three Wild Card series and outlasting the Royals and Guardians before falling to the Dodgers in the Fall Classic.
The weekend pitching plan
The first-round bye offers clear advantages. Not only do teams receive nearly a week of vital rest from a grueling 162-game campaign, but they also get the luxury of a stress-free alignment of their starting rotation. So, the fewer taxing games, the better.
Yankees ace Max Fried pitched in Wednesday’s win, and Carlos Rodón is lined up to start Thursday’s contest. The pair of valuable left-handers can, in all likelihood, be ruled out for weekend appearances against the Orioles, and this reality shouldn’t bother Boone.
But who’s slated to take the mound in the coming days? Boone said the “probables” are Will Warren (Friday), Cam Schlittler (Saturday), and Luis Gil (Sunday). Based on this normal order, Schlitter would be available on regular rest for a potential do-or-die Game 3 of the Wild Card round.
Boone also mentioned there aren’t any plans of asking Ryan Yarbrough or Paul Blackburn to spot-start or provide bulk relief work, but nothing is set in stone. The strategy is fluid while their fate is simultaneously decided by the Blue Jays, on the brink of a total September meltdown.
A familiar postseason strategy
Whether the Yankees host a best-of-three series of a best-of-five next week, their October success will be contingent upon familiar factors. They’re trusting arms like Fried and Rodón to thrive under the brightest lights. They desperately need Aaron Judge to deliver at the plate.
Their recipe for wins requires home runs, and they’ll once again have the opportunity to demonstrate this years-long philosophy from the franchise can actually yield results the fanbase has grown to doubt.
By design, the Yankees lead the majors in homers (266) and OPS (.786) this season. The threat of the long ball isn’t disappearing, and Boone believes their power bats throughout the lineup provide an edge. But he also hopes to see more athleticism and timely hitting this time around.
“It’s about getting on base as much as you can, and hopefully you put a few balls in the seats,” Boone said. “But there’s going to be those games you’ve got to win that are low-scoring, that you’re going to be kept in the ballpark. I’ve seen athleticism return more and be a little more valued over the years. Some of that is rule-based.
“Defense, little things that happen over the course of the game become important in those one-off games. But at the end of the day, it’s hard to just hit, hit, hit, double, hit, walk. You’ve got to usually take advantage of putting some mistakes in the seats. We’ve seen that play out a lot over the years of, teams that do that, usually continue to advance.”
Since the league expanded its postseason field to 12 teams and introduced the new Wild Card round in 2022, only three teams with a first-round bye have reached the World Series. The rest doesn’t guarantee a deeper playoff run, but the AL and NL pennant winners last season enjoyed the reward.
I’d be willing to bet the one thing most of us want from our iPhones is quite simple: more battery life. Apple can keep adding new features and designs with each new smartphone iteration, but if the company just announced a new iPhone with record-breaking battery life, customers would be thrilled.
While we may have to wait for a time when the iPhone can go a couple days in between charges, Apple has added a new option to iOS 26 in an effort to help extend your iPhone’s battery life. The feature, Adaptive Power, uses on-device AI to analyze your iPhone usage and guess the times you’ll need additional battery life. This is exactly how I want to see AI being used—not for generating hyper-realistic videos or musical slop.
How Adaptive Power tries to boost your battery
When Adaptive Power decides it’s time to engage, the feature can adjust your iPhone’s performance level. This will make some tasks take longer than they normally would, but that slower speed supposedly saves on battery life. In addition, Adaptive Power lowers screen brightness by 3%, limits background activity, and, when your iPhone reaches 20%, kicks on Low Power Mode without asking you first.
Apple isn’t totally clear here about the difference between Low Power Mode and Adaptive Power in general. From what we know, it seems that Adaptive Power simply reduces processing speeds at select intervals, and only slightly lowers brightness, while Low Power Mode slows speeds and display refresh rate, and limits brightness, 5G, iCloud syncing, and mail fetch, among other tasks.
Adaptive Power is enabled by default on Apple’s newest iPhones, including the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air—the latter of which could most likely benefit from such a feature. For all other compatible iPhones, which includes iPhone 15 Pro and newer, the feature is turned off by default. That means, unless you have an iPhone 17 device, you’ll need to turn this on yourself.
How to turn Adaptive Power on or off
Whether you have an iPhone 15 Pro or an iPhone 17, you’ll find the controls for Adaptive Power in the same place. Open Settings, then head to Battery > Power Mode. Here, you can tap the toggle next to “Adaptive Power” to turn the setting on or off.
Since Adaptive Power turns on and off throughout the day, Apple also offers you the option to receive alerts whenever the feature is active. You can adjust this setting from the “Adaptive Power Notifications” toggle.
I’ve been using Adaptive Power since iOS 26 dropped on Sept. 15, but it’s tough to say whether the feature has had a noticeable impact on my battery life. I think it would help if Apple added Adaptive Power information to my battery stats, so I could compare the impacts before and after using the feature. For now, I’ll continue using it, if for no other reason than to offer my battery the best possible chance of making it through the day without its charger.
Los Angeles Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka rattled off his team’s offseason accomplishments Thursday at a Lakers media availability.
But then, in that same opening statement, Pelinka subtly dropped some news:
“And in addition to that, too, recently extending JJ’s [Redick] contract just to make it clear that he’s the basketball leader, in terms of our coaching and on-court performance.”
The Lakers hired Redick last year, signing him to a four-year deal at the time despite his lack of NBA coaching experience and limited coaching experience overall.
Now they’ve extended the 41-year-old player-turned-coach ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Redick led the Lakers to a 50-32 record and the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference last season before Los Angeles bowed out to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs.
“Rob and I, we have a lot of the same philosophies on life, and one of the words we always talk about is ‘gratitude,'” Redick said Thursday, when asked about receiving the extension.
“And so I think it starts with just a high level of gratitude to the Lakers, to [Lakers majority owner] Mark [Walter], Jeanie [Buss] and Rob for having that confidence in me. It’s not lost on me, the sort of rarity of a first-time head coach getting an extension. I recognize how fortunate I am to be with an organization that supports me that way.”
The Lakers are showing a lot of confidence in second-year head coach JJ Redick. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images via Getty Images
Pelinka was asked why he extended Redick now, after just the first year of Redick’s four-year contract.
“Confidence and belief,” Pelinka said.
“We think he’s a special coach with a special voice that’s really helping us to continue to define the culture of Lakers excellence, and we just wanted to make a clear statement that this is what we believe in, what we’re going to lean into and what our players are going to mold into as we continue to develop the identity. I think having long-term planning is helpful as we build this team and go forward.”
Redick had the luxury of a full offseason this time around. Last year, he got the Lakers head-coaching job in late June. Pivoting from a media career in which he served as an ESPN analyst and notably co-hosted the “Mind the Game” podcast with James, Redick had to quickly stitch together a coaching staff and gear up for an 82-game season that he last experienced in 2020-21 as a reserve guard first for the New Orleans Pelicans and then for the Dallas Mavericks.
After that six-month sprint — which included the Lakers trading for Dončić and then Redick having to figure out how to maximize the talents of ball-dominant superstars in Dončić and James, plus where burgeoning guard Austin Reaves fit into the equation — Redick finally had a chance to come up for air.
“I thought about a lot of things,” Redick explained. “You certainly reflect on the previous season, both successes and failures, and you do a lot of self-assessment, and that was really where I spent a lot of the first probably four to six weeks.
“But I would say the two words that pop into my mind are philosophy and methodology: the philosophy of how we want to play, the methodology as a coach of how I want to teach that. And so that’s where I spent a lot of time this summer.”
Redick explained Thursday that, in May, a few weeks after his Lakers lost to the Timberwolves in five games, he met up with Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.
Redick said he knows McVay through former Rams and Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth. Redick tried to meet up with McVay before last season, but he couldn’t find the time in the chaos of his massive career, and life, transition.
This offseason, Redick had the time.
“I got about three hours along with Sean, and we were picking each other’s brains,” Redick said. “It was very helpful. One of the takeaways from that was ‘utility plays.'”
Redick brought up the anecdote when he was asked about his progression in piecing together the best offense for Dončić, James and Reaves.
“That’s something that is a football term,” Redick said of the “utility plays” McVay spoke of, “and I think every basketball team has those utility plays, and so the utility plays are plays where all three of those guys feel involved in some capacity, and they’re sharing the court together.”
In addition to spending some time with seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady this summer, and asking him about how Bill Belichick coached the dynastic New England Patriots, Redick said he met with a lot of NBA coaches earlier this month when he was in Chicago.
“So, again, it’s really just about continued growth for myself, for my staff, and I feel like we all are in a good place to serve this basketball team and our players,” Redick said.
Los Angeles Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka rattled off his team’s offseason accomplishments Thursday at a Lakers media availability.
But then, in that same opening statement, Pelinka subtly dropped some news:
“And in addition to that, too, recently extending JJ’s [Redick] contract just to make it clear that he’s the basketball leader, in terms of our coaching and on-court performance.”
The Lakers hired Redick last year, signing him to a four-year deal at the time despite his lack of NBA coaching experience and limited coaching experience overall.
Now they’ve extended the 41-year-old player-turned-coach ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Redick led the Lakers to a 50-32 record and the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference last season before Los Angeles bowed out to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs.
“Rob and I, we have a lot of the same philosophies on life, and one of the words we always talk about is ‘gratitude,'” Redick said Thursday, when asked about receiving the extension.
“And so I think it starts with just a high level of gratitude to the Lakers, to [Lakers majority owner] Mark [Walter], Jeanie [Buss] and Rob for having that confidence in me. It’s not lost on me, the sort of rarity of a first-time head coach getting an extension. I recognize how fortunate I am to be with an organization that supports me that way.”
The Lakers are showing a lot of confidence in second-year head coach JJ Redick. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images via Getty Images
Pelinka was asked why he extended Redick now, after just the first year of Redick’s four-year contract.
“Confidence and belief,” Pelinka said.
“We think he’s a special coach with a special voice that’s really helping us to continue to define the culture of Lakers excellence, and we just wanted to make a clear statement that this is what we believe in, what we’re going to lean into and what our players are going to mold into as we continue to develop the identity. I think having long-term planning is helpful as we build this team and go forward.”
Redick had the luxury of a full offseason this time around. Last year, he got the Lakers head-coaching job in late June. Pivoting from a media career in which he served as an ESPN analyst and notably co-hosted the “Mind the Game” podcast with James, Redick had to quickly stitch together a coaching staff and gear up for an 82-game season that he last experienced in 2020-21 as a reserve guard first for the New Orleans Pelicans and then for the Dallas Mavericks.
After that six-month sprint — which included the Lakers trading for Dončić and then Redick having to figure out how to maximize the talents of ball-dominant superstars in Dončić and James, plus where burgeoning guard Austin Reaves fit into the equation — Redick finally had a chance to come up for air.
“I thought about a lot of things,” Redick explained. “You certainly reflect on the previous season, both successes and failures, and you do a lot of self-assessment, and that was really where I spent a lot of the first probably four to six weeks.
“But I would say the two words that pop into my mind are philosophy and methodology: the philosophy of how we want to play, the methodology as a coach of how I want to teach that. And so that’s where I spent a lot of time this summer.”
Redick explained Thursday that, in May, a few weeks after his Lakers lost to the Timberwolves in five games, he met up with Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.
Redick said he knows McVay through former Rams and Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth. Redick tried to meet up with McVay before last season, but he couldn’t find the time in the chaos of his massive career, and life, transition.
This offseason, Redick had the time.
“I got about three hours along with Sean, and we were picking each other’s brains,” Redick said. “It was very helpful. One of the takeaways from that was ‘utility plays.'”
Redick brought up the anecdote when he was asked about his progression in piecing together the best offense for Dončić, James and Reaves.
“That’s something that is a football term,” Redick said of the “utility plays” McVay spoke of, “and I think every basketball team has those utility plays, and so the utility plays are plays where all three of those guys feel involved in some capacity, and they’re sharing the court together.”
In addition to spending some time with seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady this summer, and asking him about how Bill Belichick coached the dynastic New England Patriots, Redick said he met with a lot of NBA coaches earlier this month when he was in Chicago.
“So, again, it’s really just about continued growth for myself, for my staff, and I feel like we all are in a good place to serve this basketball team and our players,” Redick said.
