👋 Good morning! Two more sleeps 'til turkey.

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In today's edition: NBA one-month awards, pay-to-play in the NIL era, UConn falls in Maui, a new version of chess, Rivals250 for 2025 class, and more.

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Yahoo Sports AM is written by Kendall Baker and Jeff Tracy. To read in your browser, click here. Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe for free.

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Let's sports…

⚾️ Kikuchi to the Angels: Veteran lefty starter Yusei Kikuchi is reportedly headed to Los Angeles on a three-year, $63 million deal.

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🏎️ GM coming to F1: General Motors' bid to join the Formula 1 grid has been approved. They'll become the 11th team in 2026.

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🏀 New No. 1: UCLA sits atop the AP women's basketball poll after knocking off South Carolina, which dropped to fourth. UConn remains No. 2 and Notre Dame is No. 3.

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⛳️ Woods not in field: Tiger Woods' return to golf will have to wait a little longer. He won't be playing in the Hero World Challenge, his annual charitable tournament in the Bahamas.

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⚽️ Naeher retires: Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, 36, retired from the USWNT on Monday. She spent 11 years with the team, winning two World Cups and one Olympic gold.

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See what else is trending on Yahoo Sports.

We're just one month into the NBA season, but early impressions matter. Here are the current frontrunners for each awards race, according to Yahoo Sports' Kevin O'Connor.

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MVP: Nikola Jokić (Nuggets) is picking up right where he left off: He's the best player in the NBA, an unstoppable scoring force who's the symphony conductor of Denver's offense and the linchpin of the team's defense. He's setting career-highs in points, assists and steals while shooting a ridiculous 52.7% from 3-point range.

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Runners-up: Jayson Tatum (Celtics), Anthony Davis (Lakers), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder), Stephen Curry (Warriors)

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Defensive Player: Victor Wembanyama (Spurs) has taken his defense to another level in his sophomore season. Opponents are shooting 38.8% within six feet of the rim when defended by Victor, which is an absolutely ridiculous 23.1% worse than their norm. Players often won't even test him because when they do it obviously goes poorly.

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Runners-up: Draymond Green (Warriors), Dyson Daniels (Hawks)

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Rookie: Jared McCain (76ers) looks like Steph Lite, relocating for 3s, pulling up and facilitating within the flow of the offense. He averaged 25.2 points on 63.8% true shooting while Tyrese Maxey was sidelined, and he's remained a focal point with Maxey back in the lineup.

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Runners-up: Dalton Knecht (Lakers), Bub Carrington (Wizards)

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Most Improved: Christian Braun (Nuggets) is scoring the hell out of the ball, while also playing versatile defense on the perimeter and at the rim. Denver let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walk and that opened a starting spot for Braun, who has responded by playing the best basketball of his life.

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Runners-up: Bilal Coulibaly (Wizards), Bennedict Mathurin (Pacers)

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Sixth Man: Payton Pritchard (Celtics) provides something positive to the Celtics every night — with his shooting, with his midrange fadeaways, with his paint penetration, with his gritty defense. He's the best backup point guard in the NBA, and so far, the best Sixth Man.

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Runners-up: Tari Eason (Rockets), Buddy Hield (Warriors)

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Coach: Kenny Atkinson (Cavaliers) is 17-1 in his first season at the helm, and he has Cleveland's top-four of Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen looking more cohesive than they ever did under former head coach J.B. Bickerstaff.

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Runners-up: Ty Lue (Clippers), Steve Kerr (Warriors)

For the first time ever, college athletes will be paid to participate in a sporting event… sort of, Jeff writes.

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Players Era Festival: The first-of-its-kind tournament tips off today at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where eight teams will be eligible for a total of $9 million in NIL opportunities.

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Who's in: No. 6 Houston, No. 9 Alabama, No. 20 Texas A&M, No. 21 Creighton, San Diego State, Oregon, Rutgers and Notre Dame play 12 total games between today and Saturday.

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• Each participating school gets $1 million worth of NIL opportunities, which players may earn through various activities outside of the competition.
• An additional $1 million worth of opportunities will be available to players from across all eight schools.

Pay for play? This tournament further blurs the lines between NIL and pay-for-play, which remains forbidden by the NCAA. That's why none of the payouts are tied to on-court performance, and why the mechanics of the payments are somewhat convoluted.

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• The NIL deals themselves will look just like the thousands of deals that have nothing to do with a tournament (think: autograph signings, charity work).
• To ensure NCAA compliance, the presenting sponsors (Starbucks, Eli Lilly, MGM Resorts) will pay the tournament organizers, who'll distribute that money to each school's NIL collective. Then it's up to coaches how much each player receives.

Looking ahead: The Players Era Festival wants to eventually expand to 18 teams, add a women's tournament and potentially apply this framework to other sports. In all, they plan to distribute more than $50 million in NIL opportunities over the next three years.

The World Chess Championship began Monday off the coast of Singapore. Notably absent: the two best players on the planet, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.

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Where are they? Carlsen (widely considered the G.O.A.T.) and Caruana played their own match in Singapore last week — in a new version of the ancient game called Fischer Random chess, where the pieces on the back rank of the board are lined up in random order.

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From the Wall Street Journal:

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Their match is more than a gimmick. It's a loud statement about why the game is booming in popularity — and it's not because of painstaking matches that take hours and leave audiences cold.

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Top players and casual hobbyists alike want games that are spontaneous tests of chess skill rather than endless duels of memorized sequences.

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That's where Fischer Random comes in. Popularized by the American champion Bobby Fischer, the 960 possible starting positions mean that every game poses a fresh set of problems that require creative, improvised solutions.

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And Carlsen's new Freestyle Chess startup, already backed by millions in venture capital money with 25 of the world's top players committed to play on the tour, underscores his belief that the format can grip fans across the globe.

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"What we're playing now is in many ways a purer, long-form game than normal classical chess," Carlsen says. "You're sitting down at the board, and you have to think from the very beginning, and it just feels fresh."

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Full story: The greatest chess player of all time is bored with chess (WSJ)

49 years ago today, Red Sox center fielder Fred Lynn became the first rookie in MLB history to win MVP, Jeff writes.

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By the numbers: The young lefty was every bit the deserving winner, batting .331 with 21 HR and 105 RBI while leading the AL in runs (103), doubles (47), slugging (.566) and OPS (.967). He also made his first of nine All-Star Games* and won his first of four Gold Gloves.

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Zoom out: Only one other MLB rookie has ever won MVP (Ichiro Suzuki in 2001), and just six rookies across the other "Big Four" leagues have done so.

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• 🏒 NHL: Nels Stewart (1926), Herb Gardiner (1927), Wayne Gretzky (1980)
• 🏀 NBA: Wilt Chamberlain (1960), Wes Unseld (1969)
• 🏈 NFL: Jim Brown (1957)

*More history for Lynn: At the 1983 All-Star Game, Lynn hit the first and still only grand slam in the history of the Midsummer Classic.

Two college basketball giants square off tonight (9pm ET, ESPN) as No. 1 Kansas takes on No. 12 Duke in Sin City for the Vegas Showdown, Jeff writes.

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Matchup to watch: Blue Devils freshman Cooper Flagg and Jayhawks fifth-year senior Hunter Dickinson have almost identical stats, with both averaging 17.8 points, 1.8 steals and 1.8 blocks to lead their teams. They also lead their teams in rebounding, though the 7-foot-2 Dickinson is grabbing a couple more per game (10.4) than the 6-foot-9 Flagg (8.8).

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More to watch:

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• 🏀 NBA Cup*: Bucks at Heat (7:30pm, TNT); Lakers at Suns (10pm, TNT)
• 🏀 NCAAM: No. 21 Creighton vs. San Diego State (2pm, TBS); No. 20 Texas A&M vs. Oregon (4:30pm, TNT); No. 6 Houston vs. No. 9 Alabama (8pm, TBS); Rutgers vs. Notre Dame (10:30pm, TBS) … Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.
• 🏈 NCAAF: Toledo at Akron (7pm, ESPN2) … The last #MidweekMACtion of the year.
• ⚽️ Champions League: Matchday 5 (12:45-3pm, Paramount+) … Bayern vs. PSG headlines the nine-game slate.

*Pregame notes: The Bucks (8-9) have won six of seven since starting 2-8. The Lakers have still never lost an NBA Cup game, going 2-0 so far this season after winning the inaugural title with a perfect 7-0 record last year.

Kansas (2,398 wins) and Duke (2,304) are two of five men's D1 programs with at least 2,000 wins.

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Question: Can you name the other three?

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Answer at the bottom.

The Rivals 250, which highlights the top 250 football recruits in the 2025 class, features athletes from 33 states.

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Hot beds: Florida leads the way with 40 players on the Rivals 250, followed by Texas (32), California (22), Alabama (14), Ohio (12), Mississippi (9), Louisiana (9) and Tennessee (8).

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Explore the rankings: Who's No. 1 in every state?