The Sports Report: NBA draft recap

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. Let’s get right to the news.

From Dan Woike: The second Jalen Hood-Schifino made up his ming he’d be entering the NBA Draft after his freshman season at Indiana, he knew he was going to wear a green suit.

“Favorite color,” he said with a slight shrug as he moved behind-the-scenes at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

It clashed just a little with his golden Lakers hat, the first memento of his new job. The franchise selected the 6-foot-6 point guard with the 17th overall pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft, their highest draft pick since they took Lonzo Ball second in 2017.

Regardless of the Celtic green, his joy to be the newest member of the Lakers couldn’t be questioned. On his arm, he has a tattoo of Kobe Bryant.

“It’s honestly really crazy and kind of hard to say how I feel because growing up I was a big Kobe fan. I was always watching his videos, watching the Lakers,” he said. “For me to get drafted by the Lakers is kind of surreal and kind of crazy.”

His coach at Indiana, longtime NBA coach Mike Woodson, beamed with pride after the pick got announced, praising his former point guard for being so level-headed and so consistent.

Back in Los Angeles, the front office worked a bunch of different angles, including potential options to trade down in the first round. The team, though, decided on Hood-Schifino, with sources quickly signaling that their intention was to keep the selection.

Hood-Schifino had a brief workout and met with the Lakers in the build to the draft.

The team took wing Maxwell Lewis from Pepperdine with the No. 40 pick in the second round, paying more than $4 million to move up from 47 to swap picks with the Pacers.

In his lone year at Indiana, Hood-Schifino averaged 13.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists. He was the Big Ten’s Rookie of the Year.

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From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Clippers raised smoke with pre-draft trade rumors but didn’t spark any fires as Thursday’s NBA draft went as planned.

With newly promoted general manager Trent Redden working with president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, the Clippers selected former Missouri forward Kobe Brown 30th overall and forward Jordan Miller out of Miami with the 48th selection.

Brown, a 6-foot-8 forward, was just the second player in Missouri history to be voted first-team All-SEC first team by both conference coaches and media, averaging 15.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists as a senior. While Brown, 23, led the Tigers in scoring and rebounding for two consecutive seasons, his three-point shooting jumped from 20.6% as a junior to 45.5% during his senior year when he attempted 112 total threes compared to just 68 during the prior year. The Huntsville, Ala., native was also named the SEC scholar-athlete of the year and helped the Tigers to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Miller, a 6-foot-7 forward who was born in Anaheim, helped Miami to the Final Four last season, earning second-team All-ACC honors while averaging 15.3 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists. The 23-year-old played three seasons at George Mason, including one that did not count against his eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic, before playing two seasons with the Hurricanes.

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From Ben Bolch: After breaking into an amused smile at hearing his name called, indulging a round of family hugs and fitting the cap of his new NBA team snugly onto his head, Jaime Jaquez Jr. took that same hat off and stared at it like he couldn’t believe it was real.

Barely a top-100 prospect out of Camarillo High, he had stayed at UCLA for what felt like a basketball lifetime, rising from bit player to Pac-12 player of the year over the last four years.

The payoff for that perseverance came Thursday night inside the Barclays Center. Jaquez was not just an NBA player but nearly a lottery pick, the Miami Heat having selected him No. 18 overall in the draft.

“Surreal,” Jaquez said on the ESPN broadcast. “Words can’t describe it right now.”

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SHOHEI OHTANI

From Dylan Hernández: Other than the solo home run he served up to Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani didn’t give up anything.

Ohtani didn’t smile or laugh. He didn’t sigh. He didn’t break eye contact or give a knowing look. He didn’t stumble over his words.

Asked about the mounting speculation that he could sign with the Dodgers in the winter, Ohtani was as soft-spoken and measured as he was when answering any other question in his eight-plus-minute postgame media scrum on Wednesday night.

“I want to concentrate on the season,” Ohtani said in Japanese. “I’m leaving it up to my agent [Nez Balelo], and me personally, I want to concentrate on the season.”

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OLYMPICS

From Helene Elliott: Something had to change. That became clearer with each of the frustrating injuries middle-distance runner Colleen Quigley suffered not long after she had made the U.S. team for the 2016 Rio Olympics and finished eighth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

From 2018 through 2021 she couldn’t string together more than eight or 10 weeks of consistent training. “I just started breaking down all the time,” she said. But there were risks to leaving the familiar — the famed Bowerman Track Club in Oregon — for the unknown. Quigley, the 2019 U.S. indoor mile champion, was accustomed to routines and group workouts. Where could she go to find that — or something better?

Around the same time, her contract with Nike was expiring. The company had subjected her to pay cuts if she didn’t rank in the top 10 in the world or hit an annual quota of races, and her injuries diminished her value to them. With so much thrown at her, she lost the joy that had inspired her to set aside her modeling career to run at Florida State and specialize in the grueling steeplechase, with its 28 hurdles and seven sloshy water jumps.

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DODGERS

From Chuck Schilken: Rob Manfred admits he was wrong.

Granting immunity to players for their cooperation with Major League Baseball’s investigation into the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scheme?

“Maybe not my best decision ever,” the MLB commissioner says now.

That sound you just heard was Dodgers fans all over Southern California simultaneously smacking their foreheads.

Manfred made the admission during a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine that published online Wednesday, two days before the Dodgers start a three-game series against the hated Astros at Chavez Ravine.

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Plaschke: Give ‘em hell, Dodgers fans. Astros still deserve to be booed for cheating

COLISEUM TURNS 100

From Bill Plaschke: All hail the glorious Coliseum, all praise the centennial birthday of the Los Angeles landmark that has hosted a century’s worth of world-renowned athletes.

Like, strippers in an end zone hot tub.

The year was 2001, and the fledgling XFL’s Los Angeles Xtreme were attempting to entice fans by promising they could watch games from an end zone hot tub located below the famed Coliseum peristyle.

Ever the dutiful reporter, I showed up at the Xtreme’s home opener to interview any hearty souls who wanted to watch pro football in 45-degree temperatures while sitting soaking wet in their bathing suits.

Turns out, there were only three.

Cindy, Shanna and Roberta.

Earlier that afternoon, correctly concerned that no real fan would take advantage of their bubbling promotion, an Xtreme employee phoned the Spearmint Rhino gentleman’s club with a request.

“Get us three strippers down here, and fast.”

So that’s how the end zone became populated with pole dancers, the toughest athletes in the house, three women who spent four quarters basking in bikinis in what was surely one of the Coliseum’s strangest moments.

“I think it’s a little bit hokey, to tell you the truth,” Shanna said.

All hail the quirky Coliseum, a regal palace that wonderfully has mirrored the unpredictable passions and lovable eccentricities of the city that sprawls around it.

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Coliseum turns 100: Timeless Los Angeles cultural centerpiece endures as an icon

THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1917 — Ernie Shore of the Boston Red Sox retires 26 batters for a 4-0 victory over Washington. Shore relieves Babe Ruth with nobody out and a man on first, who was cut down stealing.

1922 — Walter Hagen becomes the first native-born American to win the British Open. Hagen shoots a 300 to beat Jim Barness and George Duncan by one stroke at Royal St. George’s Golf Club.

1939 — Former football great Bronko Nagurski beats Lou Thesz to win the NWA world Heavyweight title in at the Coliseum in Houston. Thesz was largely considered the greatest wrestler of all time. Houston Mayor Holcombe reportedly presents Bronko with a $10,000 diamond studded belt.

1963 — Julius Boros wins a three-way playoff to take the U.S. Open. Boros beats Jacky Cupit by three strokes and Arnold Palmer by six.

1969 — Joe Frazier TKOs Jerry Quarry in 8 for heavyweight boxing title.

1972 — President Nixon signs the Higher Education Act of 1972. Title IX of this congressional act bars sex bias in athletics and other activities at colleges receiving federal assistance.

1974 — Sandra Haynie wins the LPGA championship by two strokes over JoAnne Carner.

1985 — Laffit Pincay Jr. rides Greinton to a 1 3/4-length victory over Precisionist in the Hollywood Gold Cup, to join Willie Shoemaker as the only jockeys in history to surpass $100 million in purse earnings.

1991 — A Mazda becomes the first Japanese car to win the Le Mans 24 hours race, overtaking a Mercedes in the last three hours. Bertrand Gachot of Belgium, Johnny Herbert of Britain and Volker Weidler of Germany are the winning drivers of the rotary-powered Mazda.

1996 — Michael Johnson breaks the world record in the 200 meters, running 19.66 seconds at the U.S. track and field trials in Atlanta. The previous mark of 19.72 was set by Italy’s Pietro Mennea in 1979 in Mexico City.

1999 — The Hockey Hall of Fame waives the usual three-year waiting period and announces that Wayne Gretzky will be part of the Class of 1999.

2001 — Ilya Kovalchuk is the first player born in Russia to be taken with the No. 1 pick in the NHL draft when he’s selected by the Atlanta Thrashers.

2003 — Barry Bonds steals second base against the Dodgers, becoming the first player in MLB history to have 500 career homers and 500 steals.

2005 — Tim Duncan comes up huge in the second half and is chosen finals MVP and Manu Ginobili has another breakthrough performance to lead the San Antonio Spurs past the Detroit Pistons 81-74 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

2008 — Félix Hernández of the Seattle Mariners hits a grand slam home run against New York Mets, 1st pitcher since Steve Dunning in 1971.

2011 — NBA Draft: Duke point guard Kyrie Irving first pick Cleveland Cavaliers.

2013 — Courtney Force claims a Funny Car victory against her father at the Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals. In their first final round matchup, Courtney Force earns her second victory of the year and third in her career. She improves to 4-2 against her father, John Force, a 15-time Funny Car world champion.

2015 — The NHL’s Board of Governors approve the proposed 3-on-3 overtime change.

2016 — LSU point guard Ben Simmons is the first pick in the NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers.

2017 — NHL Draft: Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) center Nico Hischier first pick by New Jersey Devils.

—Compiled by the Associated Press