Jaylen Brown had to answer to Danny Ainge for saying he would win five rings

Boston Celtics wing Jaylen Brown discloses the discussion he had with president Danny Ainge about his comments about winning five rings.

Remember that time, in the 2018-19 season, that Boston Celtics up-and-coming wing Jaylen Brown predicted that he would have five rings by the time he was 28-years-old?

Many people may but Brown certainly does, as does Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks, who was the one who asked Brown the question on her first season of “Take It There With Taylor Rooks.”

Noting the media’s tendency to utilize “clickbait,” a term denoting content that’s more sensational than accurate, Brown explains his disdain with how his comments were portrayed.

“You know, I had to answer to like Danny Ainge? Like he came to me like, ‘You’re being disrespectful!’”

“But I didn’t mean any disrespect ‘cause I know how hard it is to win even one. I wasn’t guaranteeing anything. I wasn’t trying to be arrogant. I wasn’t saying that this is going to happen. I just like, if I wanted things to go a certain way, that’s the way I wanted them to go.”

If the fact that Ainge felt the need to address the comments wasn’t already bad enough, that the former Celtics guard considered the comments disrespectful had to be tough for the young wing. A two-time champion with the Celtics himself — having been teammates with three-time champion Larry Bird when he was in Boston — Ainge does know what it takes to win a championship. Considering Brown’s comments to Rooks and him asking if last season’s Celtics were better than Boston’s championship team in 1986, Ainge likely though that the UCal product was very arrogant indeed.

Brown has at least acquitted himself of the criticism about whether he deserved his sizable contract extension, having a career season and showing exciting developments in his game. The Celtics, playing well and sitting third in the East (with the fifth-best record in the league), are also in position to contend for a conference championship — even if they aren’t favorites for title contention.

Despite the brouhaha over his comments, both Brown and Boston have a bright future ahead.

The Los Angeles Lakers (40-12) may have …

The Los Angeles Lakers (40-12) may have a four-game advantage in the standings over the Los Angeles Clippers (37-17), but the Clippers, who are undefeated in two matchups with the Lakers, upgraded at last week’s trade deadline by acquiring Marcus Morris Sr. from the New York Knicks. “There’s no way the Lakers beat the Clippers in a seven-game series,” an Eastern Conference executive said.

Perhaps, but even though it’s too late …

Perhaps, but even though it’s too late for the Lakers to make trades, the franchise still has time to improve its roster before the playoffs. The most obvious move was adding Darren Collison, a point guard who would have provided LeBron James with another ball-handler, playmaker and scorer. Collison retired suddenly over the summer, flirted with a return and was seen courtside with Lakers owner Jeanie Buss at Staples Center last week before declining. “That’s a blow,” a former general manager said. “I’m not sure the Lakers can find a better fit than Collison.”

But the Lakers don’t have anyone else …

But the Lakers don’t have anyone else who can consistently handle the ball under duress, outside James. Avery Bradley is probably ill-suited if Clippers guard Patrick Beverley picks him up with full-court pressure. At least Rondo has some of the skills needed to get the Lakers into their offense—more so than Alex Caruso, Quinn Cook, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bradley. “He overdribbles,” said a Western Conference executive. “The team needs another guard who can handle but who can also play off of LeBron as a shooter. That’s not Rondo.”

Twitter reacts to Michigan State hiring Mel Tucker as football coach

The shocking turn of events led to some pretty excellent Twitter content.

It has been a whirlwind couple of days for the Michigan State football program and if you need evidence of that, look no further than Twitter.

We recently compiled the story of the Luke Fickell portion of the coaching search and boy was that a strange roller coaster ride.

Now that Michigan State has found its next coach in former Colorado boss Mel Tucker, Michigan State football players and fans alike are breathing an excited sigh of relief. Let’s check in on some of the reactions from current and former players, as well as fans.

We’ll start with the first reports of the news and go from there. Credit to Hondo Carpenter for scooping this one.

The Athletic’s Colton Pouncy with some (always) wise words for us all.

College football maestro Spencer Hall with the appropriate reaction, followed by a necessary request.

New recruit Darius Snow appears to be a fan.

The official announcement tweet. Excellent work finding a Mel Tucker photo with no Colorado logo on it. (or photoshopping it off)

Mark Dantonio said people would crawl to Michigan State for the job . . . apparently they’re happy enough to fly private to get to East Lansing.

Noteworthy that Tucker is the 2nd African American head coach in MSU history and projected to be the second-highest-paid black head coach in all of football! MSU’s legacy with integration in football is one to be proud of and I’m happy that continues.

Current players seemed pretty pleased with the announcement.

And some former players have weighed in as well.

Current wide receiver CJ Hayes had the best reaction. Print the shirts.

Of course the fans had to weight in. Beloved MSU Twitter misery Matt Sheehan has a good point.

New hashtag, y’all!

Mel Tucker seems pretty dang cool.

Of course, MSU backed up the Brinks truck (paid a lot of money) for Tucker, so we had to celebrate that.

Yep.

It’s been a wild coaching search on the internet, but today has been a very fun day for MSU Twitter.

Mel Tucker will be formally introduced as Michigan State’s 25th head coach during a 6:30 PM press conference, which will be aired live on BTN.

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MMA rankings report: Why Dominick Reyes climbs despite UFC 247 loss to Jon Jones

It’s not often that a fighter moves up in the rankings after a loss, but that’s the case with Dominick Reyes coming out of UFC 247.

The result of the UFC 247 main event [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] and [autotag]Dominick Reyes[/autotag] has sparked plenty of debate. So, too, might our latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings.

Jones escaped last Saturday with a unanimous decision over Reyes to retain his light heavyweight title in Houston. The outcome has been debated ad nauseam since the moment the scores were read.

On the heels of that controversy, both Jones and Reyes have made moves in our latest rankings. Despite the loss, Reyes has leapfrogged Bellator dual champion Ryan Bader for the No. 2 spot at 205 pounds. As for Jones, despite the questionable nature of his win, he moves ahead of UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov for the No. 1 spot in the pound-for-pound rankings.

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Do you agree with those decisions? Our rankings chair “Gorgeous” George of MMA Junkie Radio discusses why with MMA Junkie’s John Morgan in the latest edition of the MMA rankings report.

You can watch the video above to also find out how UFC 247 impacted the rest of the rankings, including where [autotag]Valentina Shevchenko[/autotag], [autotag]Derrick Lewis[/autotag] and [autotag]Dan Ige[/autotag] landed after their victories.

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