Boston Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum faced a lengthy recovery after he went down with a torn Achilles last May. While there was some doubt about whether he would be able to play this season, Tatum always kept hope alive, saying he wasn’t ruling himself out back in September. 

That prediction turned out to be true, as Tatum could reportedly return to action on Friday against the Dallas Mavericks, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The team officially listed him as questionable on the injury report, per The Athletic’s Jared Weiss.

The move comes after an up-and-down rehab. At times, Tatum showed off incredible progress, offering hope he could get back before the year was over. But in January, a report emerged suggesting the 27-year-old star could shut it down and prepare for next season. 

Shortly after that report, Tatum’s return started to look more realistic. In February, it was reported that Tatum was taking part in controlled scrimmages. He was assigned to the team’s G League affiliate to start taking part in practices. Eventually, Tatum found himself listed on the Celtics’ injury report, a sign he was getting close to a return. 

That culminated in Thursday’s announcement, ending Tatum’s rehab from an otherwise devastating injury.

Despite being without Tatum — and trading away Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday — the Celtics have performed much better than expected. The team sits near the top of the Eastern Conference, with forward Jaylen Brown in the midst of an MVP-caliber season.

While it’s impossible to know whether Tatum will fully return to form upon his return, the forward should make an impact, even if he’s not at full strength. Tatum has made the All-Star team in each of the past six seasons in which he was healthy, and while he hasn’t won an MVP award just yet, he’s been in contention for that honor multiple times over that period. 

Last season, Tatum averaged 26.8 points, 8.7 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game. Those numbers earned him his fourth-straight appearance on the first team All-NBA team. 

The move comes at the perfect time. With the Celtics rapidly approaching the playoffs, Tatum should have enough time to work himself into form before the end of the regular season. If the team can get him back to full strength in time for the playoffs, the Celtics could be bound for a miraculous championship run during a year most wrote the team off. 

This story will be updated.

“Just feeling a little stuck.” 

That’s what Cam Johnson said after going 0-for-6 against Minnesota on Sunday. Zero points. Twenty-three minutes. He’s posting the third-lowest scoring output of his career — worse than his first two seasons, when he was still finding his footing in the league. This isn’t the player Denver envisioned when it traded Michael Porter Jr. last summer. And right now, there’s no clean explanation for why.

Here’s the thing that keeps jumping out at me: the Nikola Jokić connection just isn’t there. Jokić runs one of the most efficient dribble-handoff operations in basketball history. His partners feast off that action when the best player on the planet is gift-wrapping them buckets. And yet the Johnson-Jokić combo is producing just 0.84 points per handoff, worst on the team.

Those handoff numbers include every possible outcome, such as Jokić getting the ball back, Johnson kicking it to a teammate, or Johnson shooting it himself. When Johnson actually pulls the trigger off a Jokić handoff, he’s posting a dismal 26.6 effective field goal percentage out of that action. By comparison, MPJ shot 58.8% last season.

And here’s where it gets really weird. Johnson is actually shooting 40.6% from 3 on the season. That’s a perfectly fine number. He’s taking a career-low 4.5 3s per game, but he’s not broken. Dig into the splits and something strange is happening: When Jokić passes him the ball, Johnson is hitting just 35.7% of his 3s. When anyone else on the roster finds him? 43.4%. How does that even happen? He shoots better off passes from Tim Hardaway Jr. than off passes from the three-time MVP. Jokić is out here making everyone on Earth better except the one guy Denver traded for specifically to get better.

The most logical explanation? Cam Johnson is completely in his own head. He sure looked and sounded like it during his postgame presser. Think about what it must feel like to be him. Every time Jokić looks his way, there’s a $94 million contract hanging over him, the ghost of MPJ floating somewhere in the background, and Jokić’s scary brothers groaning in the crowd. That’s a lot of baggage to carry into a catch-and-shoot 3. 

“It’s on me and I’m the one that got myself in it, so I got to be the one to get myself out of it,” Johnson said. “Every time that I felt down, just feel like you just keep letting yourself down, letting your teammates down — every time that’s happened, I’ve been able to turn it around some way, somehow.”

He’s been there before and found his way out. That part you believe. The problem is Denver doesn’t have time to wait for “some way, somehow.” The playoffs are coming and the Nuggets need answers now. Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson are both out with hamstring injuries, and hamstrings have a way of lingering. If Denver limps into the playoffs shorthanded, Johnson can’t be a passenger. And even if Gordon and Watson come back healthy, Johnson still needs to be a real half-court scoring option for this team to go anywhere. There’s no version of a deep Nuggets playoff run where Cam Johnson is as invisible as he was against Minnesota.

The MPJ-for-Johnson trade wasn’t just about replacing one forward with another. Denver used the cap space to add other pieces around Jokić. So it’s not entirely fair to put this all on Johnson. He wasn’t supposed to be MPJ. He was supposed to be a shooter who made everyone else’s life easier.

But so far, acquiring Johnson is looking like the wrong call. Because in Denver, the MVP can give you the ball, but he can’t give you the confidence to shoot it.

The 2026 MLB season is almost here and that means you’re likely prepping for your fantasy baseball draft. One of the best ways to prepare is to do as many mock drafts as possible. Of course, sometimes it’s tough to find an accurate representation of your league settings by using the public mock draft lobby.

Not to fear! If you’re a Yahoo Fantasy+ subscriber, you have access to the Instant Mock Draft tool, allowing you to practice your draft in seconds. You can test different strategies, pick from various draft slots and experiment with roster construction as many times as you want, anytime, instantly. Now is a great time to subscribe to Yahoo Fantasy+, so you can use the wealth of tools for your draft prep

[Yahoo Fantasy+ unlocks premium draft tools, player projections and more]

In this series, we’re going to be using the Instant Mock Draft tool to pick from each of the 12 slots in a 12-team fantasy baseball league — other mocks you can review: No. 1, No. 3. In this piece, we’ll be drafting from the No. 2 overall pick.

Note: We’re using Yahoo’s default points league settings for these mock drafts.

Full Roster

C: William Contreras, Brewers
1B: Willson Contreras, Red Sox
2B: Luke Keaschall, Twins
SS: Trea Turner, Phillies
3B: Junior Caminero, Rays
OF: Aaron Judge, Yankees
OF: Yordan Alvarez, Astros
OF: Byron Buxton, Twins
UTIL: Colson Montgomery, White Sox
UTIL: Alec Burleson, Cardinals
SP: George Kirby, Mariners
SP: Framber Valdez, Tigers
RP: Jeff Hoffman, Blue Jays
RP: Abner Uribe, Brewers
P: Nolan McLean, Mets
P: Jacob Misiorowski, Brewers
P: Sandy Alcantara, Marlins
P: Edward Cabrera, Cubs
Bench: JJ Wetherholt, Cardinals
Bench: Giancarlo Stanton, Yankees
Bench: Andrés Giménez, Blue Jays
Bench: Samuel Basallo, Orioles
Bench: Brayan Bello, Red Sox

Roster Analysis

All Rise! … Again: We went with Judge with the No. 1 pick in the first instant mock, but Yahoo’s Draft Scout tool (another benefit of Fantasy+) projects Shohei Ohtani as the top overall player. So, with Ohtani going No. 1 this time around, we’re still feeling great about taking Judge second. You can read a bit more about my debate when I picked first in the previous mock.

Building blocks: At the turn with picks 2-3, we had Caminero drop down to us. I’m not sure this will happen often, but this is the great thing about draft simulations with the Instant Mock tool. You can repeatedly practice and get a range of outcomes, so you’re ready as different things happen during your real draft. The move back to Tropicana Field this season for the Rays could nerf some offensive stats; Caminero had 45 HRs and 110 RBI last season, though he had pretty even home versus road splits. Projections believe he’ll regress a bit but if he doesn’t, Caminero has the potential to be a league-winner.

When it comes to Turner, he gives us a reliable pick with good speed.

Betting on a comeback: I decided to wait on starting pitching and lean into offense. The next pick I pulled from an idea about recency bias from Yahoo analyst Fred Zinkie, who offers a lot of great draft strategies here. Many drafters may shy away from taking a chance on Astros OF/DH Yordan Alvarez after being burned last season. He only played 48 games in 2025 as one of the bigger busts in fantasy baseball. Alvarez appears healthy and made his spring debut this week. Prior to last season, Alvarez had at least 31 HRs and 86 RBI in each of the previous four seasons. If we can get back to that type of production in 2026, Alvarez will be one of the steals of your draft.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season]

Turning to the mound: My strategy at starting pitcher was to grab a few steady options. Kirby missed some starts last season but has made at least 23 in all four of his MLB campaigns. He’s also on what should be a very good Mariners club. Same goes for Valdez, who was signed by the Tigers after eight seasons in Houston. He has started at least 28 games in each of the past four seasons. After those two, things get a little wild …

We leaned into some young, high-upside starters in McLean and Misiorowski. Both have a ton of potential but could end up blowing up in my face. If nothing else, Miz should be a great source of strikeouts and should get to double-digit wins. McLean is a little less proven with just 48 IP last season. But he also has top-of-the-rotation stuff and is on a Mets team that should provide a ton of run support.

Youth movement continues: Both Basallo and Wetherholt are top-10 prospects who are expected to crack into the majors in 2026. The O’s gave Basallo a look late last season and he’s hit well so far in spring training. He only has catcher eligibility to start out but could get 1B and 3B if Baltimore moves him around. Wetherholt, a WVU product (like myself), already has tri-eligibility, which is always a plus. He should get plenty of ABs atop a St. Louis lineup that desperately needs something to get excited about. Wetherholt hit .306 with 17 HRs and a .931 OPS in over 100 minor-league games last season.

Takeaways with drafting No. 2: This exercise didn’t feel all that different from drafting No. 1 overall as you’ll need to still reach in some spots to get players you really like being close to the turn. It does feel like leaning into offense versus pitching early in the draft in this slot makes a lot of sense. With Judge, Caminero and Turner up top, if some of my riskier picks later in the draft pay off, I should be competitive all season.

The Texas Rangers are reportedly signing veteran outfielder Andrew McCutchen to a minor-league contract, according to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.

McCutchen, 39, played with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 2023 to 2025, his second stint with the franchise with which his career began. In 135 games last season, the 2013 NL MVP batted .239, hit 13 home runs and drove in 57 runs. It was the 17th straight season in which he finished with double-digit homers and the fourth season out of the past five that saw him record at least 50 RBI.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season]

While McCutchen can play in the outfield, he has primarily been used as a designated hitter since 2022. According to Baseball Reference, the five-time All-Star has played only 20 games in the outfield since the 2024 season.

As Grant points out, what might make the right-handed McCutchen an attractive option at DH for the Rangers is his .799 OPS against left-handed starters in 2025. Veteran righty Mark Canha has been in camp this spring and has four hits in 14 at-bats while serving as DH. Joc Pederson, a lefty, is also on the roster and coming off a season in which he batted .181 in 96 games, with only 9 home runs, 26 RBI and a .614 OPS.

Should he make the team, the Rangers would be McCutchen’s sixth MLB franchise. After beginning his career with the Pirates in 2009, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants in 2018 and dealt again later that season to the New York Yankees. He then signed a three-year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Milwaukee Brewers were his next stop in 2022 before he returned to Pittsburgh ahead of the 2023 season.

McCutchen has played 2,262 career MLB games and has 332 home runs and 1,152 RBI.

The four-time Silver Slugger Award winner, 2012 Gold Glove winner and recipient of the 2015 Roberto Clemente Award said at the end of last season that he wanted to continue playing, even if it wasn’t in Pittsburgh — though he noted he wanted to retire as a Pirate.

“That’s the goal,” McCutchen said in September. “I’m not necessarily just here to be here. It would be good to have that opportunity, but we’ll pass that bridge when we get there.”

HOUSTON — Shortly after the final buzzer sounded in the Hornets’ 109-99 road triumph over the Rockets last month — their eighth straight win and longest streak since 1999 — the Charlotte conglomerate retreated to its corridors.

One by one, each player marched into the locker room with stoic expressions on their faces. No shouting, no taunting, no celebrating. A number of individuals departed to get some postgame weightlifting in, others hung back to wind down. Had it not been for the soft sounds of high fives being doled out by head coach Charles Lee, one would have assumed they had just suffered an embarrassing loss, not added another chapter into their book of resurgence. 

In this moment the culture shift — the painstaking task Lee has worked tirelessly at for nearly two years since he took the job — was palpable. This Charlotte team is not like the others. Where hopelessness and despair used to reside, there’s now an expectation of efficiency, execution and perfection. Historic winning streaks aside, the Hornets have much larger goals written on their to-do list. They’re trying to rewrite their perception. 

“I think they’re playing well,” Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff told reporters prior to Detroit ending the Hornets’ win streak. “I think they go about it in a different way than we do, but you see the confidence and belief growing. They’re capable of winning and beating good teams. The most difficult thing in this league is learning how to win and you can see that whether it’s close games or fourth quarters, they understand what it takes and have guys making plays when they’re needed.”

The Hornets, who were a bleak 11-22 at the beginning of 2026, have turned the page rather quickly. They enter Wednesday’s game against the Boston Celtics having won another five in a row and now sit at 31-31. Since Jan. 22, Charlotte is second in point differential, scoring 122.5 points per 100 possessions and is allowing just 109.2 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass — giving them the league’s No. 1 and No. 5 unit at both ends of the floor.

And it’s not simply that the Hornets are winning games, it’s who and how they’re blasting through opponents that has the league at attention now. Before they lost to Detroit, they took down Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver, Houston and the Los Angeles Lakers — otherwise known as five of the top teams in the Western Conference. We’re talking about a Charlotte team that had a 27.5 win total projection in October, according to BetMGM, folks. They’re now a play-in team and just 2.5 games back of the sixth seed. None of this is normal. 

All roads lead back to Lee, the former Bucks and Celtics assistant that arrived in 2024 with a fresh set of ideas and implementation tactics. During the preseason, Lee preached about the changes he wanted to see with his players, reducing individualism and adhering to a collective concept. More player and ball movement, encouraging drive-and-kicks, paint touches and, most importantly, a barrage of 3s. 

“You definitely gotta have the groundwork,” guard LaMelo Ball told Yahoo Sports. “For anything to build up to the top, you have to have that bottom row solid and together, you know?”

The proof is in the pudding. The Hornets have effectively eschewed shots at the rim and midrange (16th and 25th respectively in rim rate and midrange frequency) in favor of a full-out perimeter pile-on. 44.1 percent of Charlotte’s field goals come from behind the arc, which ranks second in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass.

“It’s very important that we all trust each other and believe in one another,” Lee said. “Completely committed to trying to do all the right things that are going to help us build winning habits. It’s not just me, it’s my staff, the front office, and I think the players end up carrying it out. They hold each other to a high standard and, collectively, that’s what’s helping us elevate.”

What gives them the edge, though, given their evident offensive profile, is how deliberate the Hornets are. A quick glance at their roster, particularly their starting five, could leave one to assume that this is a fast-paced team that plays to their athleticism. But according to Second Spectrum, Charlotte is just 25th in pace. It’s near-impossible to get them to play at any other speed.

The Hornets are 23rd in average time to shoot per InPredictable, a number that drops to 30th after forcing opponent turnovers, 26th after a defensive rebound and 29th on offensive rebounds. This team plays at its own tempo, grinding down the shot clock until the best shot is taken. By the time Charlotte takes a shot — they’re fourth in effective field-goal percentage during this span — opposing defenses are typically worn out having been forced to track a flurry of half-court movement. The Hornets lead the league in distance traveled on offense, up from fourth last season. 

None of this, however, comes as a surprise to Lee. Before arriving in Charlotte, Lee had already built a reputation as one of the brightest minds in the game, obsessed with winning and improving at the margins. It’s not an uncommon sight to see Lee during a timeout yelling with a clipboard in his lap, urging more from a group already on its way to victory. The 40-year-old is never satisfied, having seen what it takes to win — with two championships on his résumé with Milwaukee and Boston. That respect factor extends to Ball, the leader of this young group, and, in turn, the rest of the roster. 

It’s difficult to envision many head coaches who could get the buy-in from a team’s star player who has been benched multiple times and removed from the starting lineup altogether on a few occasions. But Lee has proven to be unafraid of tough conversations, and he and Ball have been able to move on from prior frustrations — when Ball’s future was potentially in question after a rough start. They’ve built a stronger bond because of it. 

“We all got a good bond,” Ball said. “Me, him, the coaches, the players, everybody. The whole staff. We just feel like one big family for real.”

That buy-in from Ball has become a top-down effect. Lee’s insistence on sharing the ball has resulted in drops in field-goal attempts from the likes of Ball, Brandon Miller and Miles Bridges — and increases in true shooting percentages for the latter two (Ball’s has remained the same). A significant chunk of that is tied to the presence of rookie Kon Kneuppel, the sharpshooting phenom with playmaking and shot creation chops having a historic rookie season, but the Hornets work because everyone touches the ball. They’re not tied to a heliocentric system as they have been in the past. Charlotte is league average in terms of passes and assists per game, but ranks in the top five in secondary assists — the pass before the pass. 

The offensive empowerment from Lee distilled to those four creates a system where adding in Moussa Diabate, an elite, athletic, two-way force (who is a terror on the offensive glass) yields a juggernaut. There’s a unique blend of on-ball creation, off-ball relocation, athleticism and floor spacing. According to PBP Stats, that lineup is a monstrous +179 in 281 minutes together on the floor, scoring an eye-popping 138.07.1 points per 100 possessions while holding opponents to just 110.14 points per 100 possessions. Consider this – of the top 20 five-man groups in on/off differential, the Hornets’ are the only team that has played at least 400 possessions together. Every other one — outside of Boston (387) and Oklahoma City (330) is operating on a fairly limited sample size. Cohesion and connectivity. 

Miller’s improvement in his third season also cannot be understated as a high-volume wing learning how to create value at both ends of the floor. Charlotte is +6.9 in his minutes, 84th percentile among wings. Ditto for Diabate, who is swallowing nearly 15% of the Hornets’ missed shots, 92nd percentile among bigs which translates to his +11.9 efficiency boost in his minutes. The team corrals around 37 percent of their own misses with him on the floor — phenomenal.

Given the style of play under Lee and the Hornets’ future flexibility — Charlotte owns all of its first-round picks for the next seven years — it’s not a stretch to suggest that this could become one of the most attractive destinations over the next few years. From a financial standpoint, as an over-the-cap, under-the-tax team, the Hornets also will head into this summer armed with their full mid-level exception and a number of movable contracts — in the event that another superstar (Giannis?) becomes available. Who says small markets have to be boring? 

“It feels good,” Lee said. “As an organization trying to build winning habits, be obsessed with daily improvement, it shows that all the work you’re putting in everyday is going towards something. We’re glad that we can start changing the trajectory of where we’ve been before.”

Rory McIlroy doesn’t really understand what Jon Rahm is so upset about.

The fact that earlier this year. He had to donate $5 million to charity, can’t compete in any signature events without earning his way into the field and can’t claim any FedExCup bonus money and more. The Tour estimated it could cost him $85 million in potential earnings.

“Look, the European Tour can only do so much to accommodate these guys … There’s a reason eight of the nine guys took that deal, right? I think it’s a really good deal,” McIlroy said. “Obviously Jon doesn’t think so, and he’s obviously well within his rights to think that way.

“But I just don’t see what more the European Tour can do to accommodate these guys to retain their membership.”

As for the six-event minimum, McIlroy was quick to call out Rahm for that being the sticking point. That, he said, “isn’t a heavy lift.”

“I’m sure Jon doesn’t want to go to South Africa next week [for LIV Golf], but he’s going there,” McIlroy said.

“He signed a contract for LIV and he plays 14 events and the whole thing. Like I get all that. But the DP World Tour is well within its rights to protect itself as a members organization and as a business. And if you asked any DP World Tour member about the deal that they have cut with the LIV guys they would, I think they would all say that it was pretty generous. So again, there’s a reason that eight of the nine took it, because they probably think the same thing, and one guy thinks a little differently, and that’s a shame.”

What about the Ryder Cup?

Perhaps the biggest issue with Rahm not taking the DP World Tour’s deal has to do with the Ryder Cup.

Rahm, an 11-time PGA Tour winner and two-time major champion, only got to play on the European Ryder Cup team last fall as he was actively appealing previous sanctions that the DP World Tour had levied against him. If he doesn’t resolve that appeal and his dispute with the league in time for the 2027 Ryder Cup in Ireland, he may not be allowed to actually play on the team.

In order for someone to make it onto the team, they have to be an active member on the DP World Tour. While Rahm said he would make sure to fix things in time if it came to that — he’s been on every team since 2018 — McIlroy wasn’t worried about Rahm’s participation next year.

“The Ryder Cup is bigger than any one person. It’s bigger than all of us,” McIlroy said. “We come and go. Players, we pass through the system … So at the end of the day it’s about the team and no one player is bigger than the team.”

The Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates may well be National League Central rivals, but that hasn’t stopped them from swinging notable trades of late. Last summer, we saw the deal that sent Ke’Bryan Hayes from the Bucs down river to the Queen City, and on Wednesday evening we saw yet another deal between the two clubs.

This time, it sent infielder/outfielder Tyler Callihan up to Pittsburgh in exchange for right-handed reliever Kyle Nicolas. The Reds announced the move on Twitter.

Nicolas, 27, is an Ohio native from Massillon and a former 2nd round pick by Pittsburgh out of Ball State University from back in 2020. He’s appeared in 86 games at the big league level across the last trio of seasons, and since the start of the 2024 season owns a 4.27 ERA and 4.00 FIP in 92.2 IP with an 89/49 K/BB in that time. At the AAA level just last year he struck out 50 batters in 35.2 IP using a combination of a fastball that flirts with triple digits (and averaged 97.6 mph during his time in the majors), and he’s also recently added a sinker in early spring training action after working with a slider and cutter over the course of his career.

He’s got an option remaining and is still pre-arb, with his first year of arbitration eligibility due in 2028.

Callihan, meanwhile, is a former 3rd round pick of the Reds who Cincinnati coaxed into turning professional with a well above-slot signing bonus. His minor league career (and brief big league career) have been littered with injuries, his broken arm just last year while playing left field the most gruesome of the bunch. Still, he’s a left-handed hitter with polish who has hit everywhere he’s been when healthy (and not rusty), and his defensive versatility will give him a shot to make the Pirates roster come Opening Day in some form or fashion.

The Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates may well be National League Central rivals, but that hasn’t stopped them from swinging notable trades of late. Last summer, we saw the deal that sent Ke’Bryan Hayes from the Bucs down river to the Queen City, and on Wednesday evening we saw yet another deal between the two clubs.

This time, it sent infielder/outfielder Tyler Callihan up to Pittsburgh in exchange for right-handed reliever Kyle Nicolas. The Reds announced the move on Twitter.

Nicolas, 27, is an Ohio native from Massillon and a former 2nd round pick by Pittsburgh out of Ball State University from back in 2020. He’s appeared in 86 games at the big league level across the last trio of seasons, and since the start of the 2024 season owns a 4.27 ERA and 4.00 FIP in 92.2 IP with an 89/49 K/BB in that time. At the AAA level just last year he struck out 50 batters in 35.2 IP using a combination of a fastball that flirts with triple digits (and averaged 97.6 mph during his time in the majors), and he’s also recently added a sinker in early spring training action after working with a slider and cutter over the course of his career.

He’s got an option remaining and is still pre-arb, with his first year of arbitration eligibility due in 2028.

Callihan, meanwhile, is a former 3rd round pick of the Reds who Cincinnati coaxed into turning professional with a well above-slot signing bonus. His minor league career (and brief big league career) have been littered with injuries, his broken arm just last year while playing left field the most gruesome of the bunch. Still, he’s a left-handed hitter with polish who has hit everywhere he’s been when healthy (and not rusty), and his defensive versatility will give him a shot to make the Pirates roster come Opening Day in some form or fashion.