SI:AM | Lakers Might Lose Their Footing

And, why the Packers might finally trade Rodgers.

Good morning, I’m Josh Rosenblat. Am I allowed to say I actually feel a little bad for the Lakers?

In today’s SI:AM:

🤕 LeBron could miss time with foot injury

🧀 The Packers could finally trade Rodgers

🏆 Conference tourney previews

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Bad new for the Lakers

Coming off a busy trade deadline and All-Star weekend, the Lakers looked poised to make some noise during the final stretch of the NBA season. Los Angeles has won four of five since the deadline, and their on-the-fly roster remake was already paying dividends.

With a group of players that resembles something closer to the one the Lakers won the title with in 2020, Anthony Davis has regained his form as one of the league’s most dominant big men. LeBron James has been able to find newly acquired open shooters such as Malik Beasley, who had 25 points in a win over the Warriors last week. Defensively, the Lakers have been more versatile and menacing with Jarred Vanderbilt hounding opposing stars.

It was all seemingly lining up for the 12th-place Lakers to push their way into the play-in or even the top six in a crowded Western Conference.

“I won’t even pretend to know what comes next for this team, other than to say they have a shot to look far more consistent from game to game now as the roster makes more sense,” Chris Herring wrote last week in the Playmaker newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free.

“We’ll see whether there’s enough time for L.A. to turn this around,” he added. “If not, it will merely make me wonder why the team waited so long to wheel and deal (yes, I know they got Rui Hachimura a little bit earlier) when they could’ve done it sooner. Better late than never, though.”

Well, Herring’s cautious optimism was well founded. During Sunday’s comeback win over the Mavericks, James fell to the floor in Dallas holding his foot. Microphones picked up James telling his teammates, “I heard it pop.” James finished the game, but it was reported last night by The Athletic’s Shams Charania that there are fears James will miss multiple games with an injury.

The Lakers play the Grizzlies tonight, which had become a highly anticipated game for both basketball-centric and off-court reasons. Could the Lakers hang with one of the contenders at the top of the West? Would Shannon Sharpe show up in a fancy cardigan again to stir something up?

But instead of this being a measuring stick for the new-look Lakers, this game and those coming up after it are now about how coach Darvin Ham & Co. can stay within touching distance of the postseason until James comes back healthy.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Jeff Hanisch/USA TODAY Sports

• Albert Breer examines some of the biggest stories in the NFL right now, including why this might finally be the time the Packers trade Aaron Rodgers.
• Conference basketball tournaments are finally here, and Pat Forde previews the first 14 men’s tourneys.
• Forde also reveals the trends in men’s college hoops he’s watching as we hurdle toward March Madness.
• Could there be more trouble on the horizon in the relationship between the MLBPA and team owners? Emma Baccellieri reports that the two sides disagree on a potential salary cap.
• John Hawkins writes about watching LIV Golf broadcasts, and his main takeaway is that it might be better to leave it on mute.

The top five...

… headlines at this week’s NFL combine, according to Albert Breer. (You can check out all nine in Breer’s MMQB column.)

5. The 2023 draft could be remembered for its tight ends.

4. Can Bijan Robinson change notions about running back value?

3. There is a limited amount of top-tier talent.

2. “Florida QB Anthony Richardson is the draft’s most interesting man.”

1. It’s not about how good the top quarterbacks look, but how teams evaluate their potential.

SIQ

On this day in 1959, the Rams and Cardinals made one of the biggest trades in NFL history. How many players did Los Angeles give up to acquire running back Ollie Matson?

• 7
• 9
• 11
• 13

Yesterday’s SIQ: Ninety-nine years ago this past weekend, Maryland high school student Marie Boyd set a record for most points scored in a basketball game that still stands today. How many points did she score?

• 141
• 156
• 170
• 201

Answer: 156. Boyd’s team, Lonaconing Central, beat Ursuline Academy of nearby Cumberland, 163–3. She made 77 field goals and hit just two free throws.

A 1982 Associated Press article described how Boyd still returned to the small town in western Maryland every year to attend the local hall of fame banquet. Still, Boyd was sheepish about her achievement.

“I never tell anybody these things about myself,” she told the AP. “I could be in a group, and I never discuss it. I never say, ‘Oh I hold the world’s record.’ It would be embarrassing.”

The rules of girls basketball were very different in those days. There were six players on each team, divided into guards and forwards. Only the forwards were allowed in the frontcourt and were allowed to shoot. According to the AP, the idea to run up the score came after Sarah Hawes, of rival Beall High School in nearby Frostburg, had her own scoring outburst:

A few days after Hawes had a 95-point night the miffed Central High girls decided they would not be outdone. So they worked on a pattern for their next game, against Cumberland’s Ursuline Academy, that would make Marie Boyd the undisputed scoring queen of western Maryland.

Henry “Doc” Hodgson, coach of the Central High girls, came up with the strategy: The center taps the ball to side center, who passes it to Boyd under the basket for the shot.

The 5'7" Boyd had a height advantage over the Ursuline team and blew Hawes out of the water with an offensive display that has stood the test of time. —Dan Gartland