Only for Guild Members » what really happene

METAIRIE, La. -- Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday will play for the first time this season on Friday night against the Portland Trail Blazers, general manager Dell Demps said Tuesday.Meanwhile, guard Tyreke Evans returned to practice on a non-contact basis Tuesday. Demps said it is unclear when Evans will play, but that he appears to be in great shape.Holiday has been on indefinite leave since summer to care for his wife, retired international soccer star Lauren Holiday, who had brain surgery last month, just weeks after giving birth to the couples daughter.The Pelicans play in Orlando on Wednesday night, and Demps said Holiday is slated to practice with the team on Thursday before making his debut the following night in what will be New Orleans 13th game of the season.Demps said he expects Holidays return to be gratifying for Pelicans players and staff on both personal and professional levels.Hes just a great person -- just bringing him back and getting him back with the group, from a social standpoint, is most important, Demps said. From a basketball standpoint, we dont want to put pressure on him and make him feel like hes the savior.Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said he wasnt certain whether Holiday, who has been working out on his own in North Carolina the past couple months, would start or how much hed play.I just know we wont play him 35 minutes the first game back, Gentry said. Were not going to do anything like that. I think weve got to be smart about it. Hes been working out twice a day. Hes in great shape. Theres a big difference in being in great shape and being in basketball shape.New Orleans has won just two of its first 11 games, but also two of its last three after and 0-8 start.Its good for us -- a big, key component to our team that were able to get back, said forward Anthony Davis, who has been averaging 30.5 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.9 blocks, but has lacked the help he need to produce more victories. Its good for everybody and well try to get this thing going.Holiday is expected to return as healthy as he has been in several seasons.He began last season on minute restrictions following his rehabilitation from a nagging lower leg injury that had sidelined him for much of the 2013-14 and 2014-15 campaigns.A former Eastern Conference All-Star with Philadelphia before his trade to New Orleans in 2013, Holiday wound up playing in 65 games with 23 starts during the 2015-16 season, averaging 16.8 points, 6.0 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 28.2 minutes per game. He scored 20 or more points 25 times and recorded six double-doubles.Jrues very good offensively and very good defensively, Davis added. Hes going to bring that passion, that energy, that fight. So its going to be good to have him back on the floor for us and have Jrue being Jrue.Tim Frazier has been starting in Holidays place this season, averaging 11.4 points and 7.9 assists. He said hes been in constant contact with Holiday, particularly after games to ask for his evaluation.Coming from the point guard spot, I know what you see outside is different from what I see on the court, Frazier said. He just told me what hes seeing and hes been positive, telling me to keep my head up and continue to fight and that he was on his way back soon.As for Evans, the Pelicans will gradually ramp him up to contact practices within the next couple weeks, Demps said, raising the prospects that the versatile 6-foot-6 guard and wing player could be playing in early December.Itll all be based on how his rehab goes in the next days, weeks, Demps said, peering through a conference room window with a view of Evans running through basketball drills on the practice court. If you just look at him right now, its pretty close.Demps said the Pelicans also hope by the end of next week to receive a medical update on small forward Quincy Pondexters recovery from multiple knee surgeries, which might provide a clearer timetable on his return. Colorado Avalanche Store Avalanche Jerseys 2020 . "It doesnt get any better than that," Giambi said. "Im speechless." The Indians are roaring toward October. Giambi belted a two-run, pinch-hit homer with two outs in the ninth inning to give Cleveland a shocking 5-4 win over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, keeping the Indians up with the lead pack in the AL wild-card race. https://www.cheapavalanche.com/ . JOHNS, N. Fake Avalanche Jerseys . Despite the cost, effort and an improved steroid test, its possible that very few -- if any -- positives will be detected, Dr. Richard Budgett told The Associated Press in an interview. "We just dont know what the results from Torino will be," Budgett said. Custom Colorado Avalanche Jerseys . Numbers Game examines the deal that sees Michael Del Zotto and Kevin Klein switch places. The Predators Get: D Michael Del Zotto. LAHAINA, Hawaii -- Chaminades 77-72 victory over Ralph Sampson and top-ranked Virginia in 1982 is widely considered the biggest upset in college basketball history, among the greatest in any sport.Unlike todays world of 24-hour sports networks, social media and smartphones, the game was played in relative obscurity.Fewer than 4,000 fans, officials, media and team members were inside Blaisdell Center that day. For those who were there, the memory of what happened on Dec. 23, 1982, left the kind of indelible mark that comes with witnessing history.Three of those people -- Silverswords point guard Mark Rodrigues, Washington Post sports writer Michael Wilbon and public address announcer Chuck Williams -- recall the events surrounding that game.---Rodrigues: The year before when we played them, we didnt get beaten too badly, so we were pretty confident, had a bit of cockiness. Everyone is a little bit cocky and we had the mentality that we could beat anyone.Few outside the team gave them much of a shot.Williams: It was really only the die-hard fans there because we probably should have been 40-point underdogs to Virginia. It was going to be a smash.---But the Silverswords had an advantage.Virginia was coming from Tokyo, where it beat Utah and Houston despite Sampson missing both games. He was still sick when the Cavaliers arrived in Hawaii.Wilbon: I was staying in the same Hyatt Regency as Virginia. Ralph was on my floor and with those circle towers, theres not much space between rooms and I could hear Ralph coughing and wheezing. I didnt think Ralph was going to play and there was opportunity for some drama.Wilbon already had a bit of drama while covering Maryland at the Aloha Bowl.Terps defensive back Bobby Gunderman fell and broke his arm on the way to the airport, then somehow ended up flying to Caracas, where he was detained for being a suspected drug dealer. Maryland receiver Mike Lewis also nearly drowned while swimming off Waikiki Beach.Wilbon: My boss, George Solomon, said `Youve already written too many pieces, take the night off. I said, Im not taking the night off. How many chances to see the No. 1 team play in an exotic situation, a different situation, Ralph Sampson already three-time player of the year? There was no way I was going to miss that.Wise decision.---Inside the locker room at Blaisdell, Silverswords coach Merv Lopes turned off the lights so the players could meditate, then went down the line.Williams: He says to Mark Wells: Mark, is this guy faster than you? No. Can he shoot better than you? No, coach. He goes all the way down the line to Tony Randolph who was going against Ralph Sampson, looked at him and said, `What can I say? Everyone got a laugh out of that.Rodrigues: The point is theyre only as good as you allow them to be. One of the things he always said was, if they take 40 steps, you take 41. He didnt say anything else but lets go give the people something to see.They did.----The Silverswords were the aggressors from the start, scoring six of the games first eight points. They swarmed Sampson whenever he touched the ball and had a game plan for getting him away from the basket on defense -- one that started with Randolph shooting jumpers over a team manager holding a broomstick at practice.Williams: In locker room, Merv said to Tony Randolph, you need to go out there and hit 15-foot jump shots to get that monster of a player out away from the basket. Tony hit five or six shots in a row from medium range and brought Ralph out, which opened things up for the other guys. That was the real key. If he was throwing bricks up there, 1 for 7 of something like that, Ralph would just plant himself underneath.---Chaminade continued to go at the Cavaliers and the game was tied 43-all at halftime, prompting a call from Wilbon to his desk.ddddddddddddWilbon: I said are you guys listening to this on the radio? If this stays close, save me some space, dont put the paper to bed. They said OK.Rodrigues: At that point, it just gave us more confidence.When Virginia scored the first seven points of the second half, it appeared the game would turn quickly. But the Silverswords answered with a 7-0 run of their own.Then Rodrigues found 6-foot guard Tim Dunham, who soared over the 7-foot-4 Sampson for an alley-oop dunk.Rodrigues: People said from that point on, you could see it on Virginias face that they knew they were in for a serious challenge.Williams: Sampson is running down the floor shaking his head, like hes saying I dont believe that. Timmy just went up, up, up ... slam! As Im announcing, I see this thing unfolding and as the ball goes through, Im saying Ti-iiiim Dunham!---Chaminade led by two with a minute left and Virginia had three chances to tie, missing all three. Virginias Othell Wilson was then called for a carrying violation and the Silverswords closed out the improbable victory by hitting three free throws.Wilbon: People were in disbelief. It wasnt like today. I dont remember people rushing the floor. It might have been chaotic then, but not by todays standards. You had the biggest upset in the history of college basketball and no one quite knew what to do.Williams: Richard Haenisch, I dont know he did it, he ended up sitting on the rim with a basketball in his hand. The celebration was crazy.Rodrigues: We went into the locker room and the fans were calling for us to come back. We came back out on the court, sat there for a while, celebrated and talked.---After the game, Wilbon waited to get Virginia coach Terry Holland before calling his desk.Wilbon: It must have been the local AP reporter who said: `Coach, is this the greatest upset of all-time? I remember almost looking down because this question is going to get us one and done. Hes going to answer angrily and walk off. And I remember there was no sound coming out and Terry Holland was shaking his head affirmatively, saying something to the effect of I think it is. I was like `Oh my god, oh my god, called the paper and asked are you guys listening. They were like, `Yeah, but we put the paper to bed. Ive never been angrier in my life, professionally because they put it to bed and the next morning there was nothing in my paper.Rodrigues: We didnt really realize how big it was until the next day. Thats when AP was calling, everyones sports department was calling, it was getting on CNN news, the local news and then you realize what really happened.Williams: They couldnt even pronounce the name of the school. They kept calling it, Chami-NADE, like lemonade.---The shockwaves of the upset took a while to reach the mainland, but continue to resonate today.Williams: It put Chaminade on the map, a little school 2,500 miles from the nearest land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.Rodrigues: They wanted to change the name of the school to Saint Louis-Honolulu, to have a more recognizable name in the title. They changed their mind after that game.Wilbon: Every day I get further away from it, I realize its the greatest upset in history. Can you imagine Kentucky losing to an NAIA school? The whole thing was surreal. It wasnt the game that was surreal, it was the surroundings of it. It was just not possible for it to happen.---More AP college basketball: www.collegebasketball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 ' ' '