The Pulse: LA leads as NBA free agency begins (2024)

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Good morning! Happy July.

Big Deals: More tampering, please

Last night, NBA free agency officially began, and it didn’t take long for one team to hoard all the spotlight:

James Hardenisplanning to sign a two-year, $70 million dealto return to theClippers. It turns out he’s just been happy in Los Angeles and thus will stay out of the free-agent fray. Very … reasonable!
Meanwhile,Paul Georgeinformed the Clippers he will not be re-signing. Theteam’s statementacknowledging the situation is a fun one! Shams Charaniareportsthe 34-year-old is headed to theSixers on a four-year deal.
The Clips’ efforts now turn toworking withRussell Westbrookto find a trade. Per our Tony Jones, theNuggetsand the nine-time All-Starhave mutual interest.
LA isalsoplanning to sign forwardDerrick Jones Jr.to a three-year, $30 million dealas a possibility to replace George.

Our Clippers writer,Law Murray, was busy on night one. Give him a read and keep followingThe Athletic’sfree-agency live blogas other teams (hopefully) join in.

More NBA news:

Chris Paul, 39, intends tosign a one-year, $11 million contractwith theSpurs after the Warriors waived him yesterday.
ThePistonsare hiringformer Cleveland head coachJ.B. Bickerstaff in the same role, James L. Edwards III reports.
Guard Kentavious Caldwell-Popeis departing Denver, agreeing toa three-year, $66 million dealwith theMagic.
Kevin Love, 35, is finalizinga two-year, $8 million dealto return to theHeat.

Hi, My Name Is: The next U.S. gymnastics phenom?

There was little doubt heading into the second and final day of the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials as to who would take four out of the five spots on theParis squad: Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey (all previous Olympians). But because of a rash of injuries to top contenders, the fifth spot was anyone’s guess.

The answer?Hezly Rivera, a newly 16-year-oldfrom New Jersey with limited international experience (credit where due to our Tess DeMeyer, who correctly predicted this selection inyesterday’s Pulse). Some fast facts:

Currently the youngest Team USA Olympic athlete, Rivera was the 2023 junior all-around national champion and just made her senior elite debut earlier this year.
She trains under Valeri Liukin, father of 2008 Olympic all-around gold medalist Nastia Liukin.
Heruneven barsandbalance beamroutines are where she factors into the stacked Olympic team, as those are (relatively) weak spots among the other four athletes.

A stat to melt your brain: Rivera was 5 years old when Simone Biles, 27, won her first world title.That Biles is still doing this, after all she’s been through, is all the more incredible when you learn she’ll bethe oldest American gymnast to compete at the Games since 1952.

And just for good measure, a screengrab of Biles to further melt your brain. Remember that she is FOUR-FOOT-EIGHT:

SIMONE BILES IS LITERALLY LAUNCHING INTO SPACE. 🚀 #USAGTrials24 pic.twitter.com/bDGMRauCpg
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 1, 2024

News to Know

Berhalter up against it?
There arestorylines aplentyto follow in the USMNT’s nervy Copa America matchup against Uruguay tonight. Perhaps chief among them? Manager Gregg Berhalter is quite possibly coaching for his job. (Uruguay’s coach, Marcelo Bielsa,is meanwhile suspended.) Berhalterwouldn’t sayyesterday whether goalie Matt Turner will be healthy enough to play, and here’s a reminder thatTim Weah is outthanks to his infamous red card versus Panama.Copa America cruises on

Mercedes ends F1 drought
A rare shakeup atop the Formula One ranks yesterday: George Russellwon the Austrian Grand Prixafter Max Verstappen and Lando Norriscollided while battlingfor the lead. It was Mercedes’ first win since the 2022 season. The crash came after anuncharacteristically slow pit stopfrom Red Bull (a whole 6.5 seconds) that closed the gap behind him to Norris. Verstappen called it an “awful” race and said the team “did a lot of things wrong.” Yikes! Head over toPrime Tirefor the full breakdown.

More news:

ForwardSam Reinhart— the NHL’s top unrestricted free agent, according to Chris Johnston —agreed to return to thePanthers on an eight-year contract.
Track starSydney McLaughlin-Levronebroke her own world recordin the 400-meter hurdles atU.S. Olympictrials — herninth timesetting the record in the event.
Sky rookieAngel Reeserecorded her 10th consecutive double-double, this time in a loss to the Lynx, markingthe longest single-season streakin WNBA history.
England’sJude Bellinghamscoreda stunning stoppage-time bicycle-kick goalagainst Slovakia tosave the Euro 2024 favorites’ tournament. Sigh.
The last-place Utah RoyalsfiredcoachAmy Rodriguezwith 11 games left in the team’s first season.Rough couple weeksfor NWSL expansion coaches.

Journeys: How Lilia Vu became an Olympian

It’s hard to know where to even start with this one. But where you’ll end? With chills, and quite possibly in tears.

Brendan Quinn’s A1 story today is the harrowing tale of how 26-year-old golfer Lilia Vu came to represent the United States at the Paris Olympics.The full pieceis well, well worth your time. Some details that will stick with me for the long haul:

In 1982, Vu’s mother’s family fled postwar Vietnam on a homemade boatcarrying more than 80 passengers, knowing they either had tomake it around 700 milesto Singapore or hope a passing boat rescued them.
On the brink of complete disaster, the group fired off a flare and was spotted by a U.S. Navy ship.Quinn tracked down and spoke with members of that ship’s crew, many of whom have wondered for the last 40 years what became of the refugees. Imagine the moment they found outa 12-year-old girl from the boat had a daughter who will compete in the Olympics in a month.
The photos. Period.

Seriously,just make time to read the whole thing.

Watch This Game

France vs. Belgium
12 p.m. ET on FS1
Two of the Euros’ premier teams are squaring off in the round of 16, earlier than many expected. High-stakes soccer for breakfast (shoutout to my West Coast compatriots) or lunch — delicious!

USMNT vs. Uruguay
9 p.m. ET on Fox
The Americansneed to match or better Panama’s resultagainst Bolivia — a game that’s happening simultaneously — to advance to the quarterfinals. For the reasons mentioned earlier, plus Uruguay being a fellow top-15 team inFIFA’s rankings, it’s a daunting task.

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Get tickets to games like these here.

Pulse Picks

It’s common to refer tocollege footballas experiencing a new era right now, but quite arguably, this era began almost exactly 40 years ago. Seth Emerson explains howa Supreme Court case over TV rightsset the stage for so many of the sport’s current overhauls.

Welcome to July,MLB trade deadlinemonth. In thelatest deadline watch, our staff is keeping an eye on the Brewers.

TheU.S. men’s gymnasticsteam could use a dose of star power. Dana O’Neil on the guy who might deliver it in France:TikTok starFred Richard.

One contract worth ponderingfor eachNFLteam. Hmm, CeeDee Lamb and Ja’Marr Chase.

No, of course it’s not too early fora 2025NHLmock draft. James Hagens is the new name to know.

Over the past decade, the quality ofTriple-A baseballhas been quietly declining. Cody Stavenhagenexplores the effectson struggling MLB hitters.

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: The story ofSimone Biles’ new floor routine, of course.

Most-read on the website yesterday: Driver Yuki Tsunoda wasfined for using ableist languageover team radio during F1 Austrian GP qualifying.

(Photo: Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images)

Torrey is a staff editor on The Athletic’s news team. Before joining The Athletic, she worked as a digital editorial producer at NBC Olympics. Prior to that, she was a news editor at Front Office Sports, worked as an editorial production assistant for Pac-12 Networks and wrote for outlets including Yahoo Sports and Sports Illustrated.