Four-time Grand Slam singles winner Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and her ex-husband were found guilty of fraud, a Spanish court ruled Wednesday.

The court said that Sánchez Vicario and her former husband, Josep Santacana, who divorced in 2019, hid assets in an attempt to avoid paying massive debts owed to the Banque de Luxembourg.

Sánchez Vicario was sentenced to two years in prison, but that sentence was waived because she is a first-time offender and is contingent on her paying back her debts to the bank.

Santacana was given a three-year-and-three-months sentence. The couple must also pay a fine of $7.1 million.

Sánchez Vicario, 52, who spent 12 weeks as a No. 1 player, won three French Open singles titles and a U.S. Open championship before retiring in 2002.

He was a household name at the age of 19.

He made World Series history by becoming the youngest player to homer in the 1996 Fall Classic against the New York Yankees, hitting two in Game 1.

He won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves (1998-2007), anchoring center field for an Atlanta Braves team that won the National League East in each of his first 10 seasons (1996-2005).

He finished with 434 career home runs, including a franchise-record 51 in 2005, all before retiring at the age of 35.

And in September, 2023, his No. 25 was retired by the Braves.

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His name: Andruw Jones, the Curaçao native who lived up to expectations.

Now, Jones sits on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the eighth time, hoping to get the 75% votes needed for induction into Cooperstown.

The case for Andruw Jones

He was a generational talent, the modern-day Willie Mays with the combination of power and defense.

His 10 Gold Gloves and 434 home runs made him one of only four players to have won 10 Gold Gloves with 400 career home runs. The others are Mays, Mike Schmidt and Ken Griffey Jr. − all first-ballot Hall of Famers.

He’s also one of six outfielders with 10 or more Gold Gloves. The others are Roberto Clemente and Mays (12 each), and Ken Griffey Jr., Al Kaline and Ichiro Suzuki (10 each).

Gold Gloves are nice. So are defensive analytics. The center fielder’s career 24.4 defensive WAR, per Baseball Reference, is the most of any outfielder in MLB history, by 5.6.

And during that span from 1998 to 2006, Jones totaled 54.5 WAR. That ranked third among position players, behind only Alex Rodriguez (70.6) and Barry Bonds (67.6).

The case against Andruw Jones

Longevity could hurt Jones’ case. His peak years were in his 20s and by the time he turned 30, his production began to drop rapidly. In 2005, he slugged a major league high 51 homers and had a .922 OPS, finishing second in the National League in MVP voting. After he turned 30 in 2007, his OPS plunged to .724, the last year he won his final Gold Glove.

The star outfielder’s career in Atlanta ended after the 2007 season when he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent. He was never the same, with injuries limiting him to 75 games and a career-low .158 batting average.

He would end up playing for four different teams in his final five years in the big leagues batting a combined .210 with a .740 OPS, playing only over 100 games in one of those seasons.

Voting results

Jones is making his eighth appearance on the ballot. He has seen a steady climb in votes since 2019 – becoming of one of three players to gain mention on more than half the ballots last year outside Scott Rolen. The other two: reliever Billy Wagner (68.1%) and outfielder Gary Sheffield (55.0%).

2018 – 7.3%2019 – 7.5%2020 – 19.4%2021 – 33.9%2022 – 41.4%2023 – 58.1%

Reasonable outlook

It’s trending in the right direction. With nearly half the estimated ballots recorded, Jones is sitting at 72% of the vote, just shy of the 75% needed to gain induction. The good news is that he debuted on the ballot the same year as Rolen and seems to be following the same trajectory, but a year behind due to his gaining only 0.2% from 2018 to 2019. However, he has two more years on the ballot.

If there’s one NBA player team executives believe won’t be on the team he is on now by the time the Feb. 8 trade deadline expires, it’s Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam.

Where will Siakam end up? The Sacramento Kings were involved in discussions, and The Athletic reported on Tuesday that the Indiana Pacers and Raptors are engaged in trade talks involving Siakam to Indiana for Bruce Brown and multiple first-round picks.

Siakam, two-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection, isn’t sure today where he wants to play next season, which complicates the deal for another team that risks giving up players and draft picks with the possibility of not re-signing Siakam in free agency this summer.

Who else could be traded before the deadline? Here are the top candidates:

Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam

Pascal Siakam’s four-year, $136.9 million contract expires after this season, and he has shown little interest in re-signing. He won a title with the Raptors in 2019, was rewarded with a lucrative deal and is now seeking one more max (or near-max) contract. Siakam, 29, averages 22.2 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.9 assists and shoots 52.2% from the field.

When Toronto president was an executive in Denver, he learned a valuable lesson during the Carmelo Anthony saga. If it’s unclear – or even set in stone – that a player won’t re-sign in free agency, you have to get something in return. Masai and his front-office staff are in that situation.

Pascal is headed somewhere in a trade – to whom and for what will be settled within the next three weeks.

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Atlanta Hawks guard Dejounte Murray

The Atlanta Hawks acquired Dejounte Murray, 29, from San Antonio in the summer of 2022 to see what he and All-Star point guard Trae Young could do together in the backcourt. It hasn’t yielded great team success after 1½ seasons.

A team looking for scoring from the guard spot should be interested in Murray, who averages 20.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists – on the verge of a 20-5-5 season – and shoots 46.7% from the field and 38.6% on 3-pointers.

The Los Angeles Lakers are a team that can use a player like Murray, who is represented by LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul. The New York Knicks are another team that could use a scorer next to Jalen Brunson in the backcourt.

Murray’s four-year, $114 million extension begins next season, and as the salary cap increases, his contract will be favorable for a team given his production.

Indiana Pacers guard Buddy Hield

Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine

Some teams would appreciate Zach LaVine’s scoring. What makes them hesitate is the three years, $137.9 million remaining on his contract. Yearly, LaVine’s deal will eat up about 30% of a team’s salary cap, and the impact of new collective bargaining agreement will give teams reason to pass on a deal for LaVine.

Still, he’s a solid scorer. Is it worth it for a contender to take a chance on LaVine? Or, will a team that may not have the same appeal as a free-agent destination (say, Charlotte or Detroit) go for LaVine?

Washington Wizards guard Kyle Kuzma

Yes, Kyle Kuzma, 28, is in the first year of a four-year, $90 million, but it’s a manageable deal especially for a player who averages a career-high 22.4 points and career-high 4.2 assists plus 6.3 rebounds. His yearly salary decreases season by season, and his salary projected to take up just 11% of a team’s salary cap in the final season in 2026-27. Kuzma, who won a title with the Lakers in 2020, has handled the situation with the Wizards well and is another player who can provide scoring.

Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry

TCU is holding an open tryout for walk-on players to join its women’s basketball team.

The program posted about the event on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday afternoon after news broke that morning that two TCU women’s basketball games were canceled because the team doesn’t have enough players.

The open tryout will be held on Thursday and Friday for full-time students at the university who pass a physical and have high school basketball experience.

‘Per Conference rule, the member institution unable to field a team will forfeit the contest if no extraordinary circumstances exist,’ the conference said in a statement.

Kansas State and Iowa State both pick up a win with the Horned Frogs taking two losses, all in league standings. The overall records for the three teams will not be affected, per NCAA policy.

Guard Jaden Owens suffered a torn ACL and meniscus in Saturday’s loss to Houston. She is a graduate student and the injury ends her season and her college basketball career.

The school said it will not be giving refunds for tickets for Wednesday’s game. Fans can exchange tickets for an available home game left on the schedule.

There are numerous reasons why the Philadelphia Eagles collapsed this year. The team started 10-1 and that was followed by losing six of their last seven games. But there’s one reason that’s the biggest by far. To look at that, we need to go back to this past summer when everyone, and I mean almost everyone, thought the team had the best roster in the sport.

I did. You did. Your cousin did. And not just Eagles fans believed this. Many in the league did. And many who cover the league. In August, ESPN ranked Philadelphia’s roster as the best in the NFL. It was a smart take. The team had one of the best pass throwers in the league in Jalen Hurts, one of the top receiving groups, and what is generally seen as the best offensive line. It all made sense.

Pro Football Focus also ranked the Eagles’ roster as the best in the league, writing in early September: ‘The Eagles have the best quarterback in the NFC. They have dynamic weapons on offense. Nobody in the league is better in the trenches. There are sore spots in the middle of their defense, but they have as good a chance as anybody to get back to the Super Bowl.’

‘The Eagles front office seems to hit on a rate higher than maybe even Jalen Hurts’ completion percentage,’ wrote Deadspin.com in November. The site added that Howie Roseman, the team’s executive vice president and general manager, made things easier for the team since Roseman and his staff are ‘excellent at their jobs (allowing) the players to do the heavy lifting of playing NFL football with the confidence that the man beside him is a competent professional.’

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This isn’t to pick on any individual site because, again, we all did it. I definitely believed it.

There’s just one problem: It may not have been true.

The problems with the Eagles are many. Hurts, as analyst and former Super Bowl winner Troy Aikman noted, may be more injured than he’s letting on. Coach Nick Sirianni also went full Ray Handley and was totally and completely clueless on how to fix the problems of the team. There were other injuries. Lots of things went wrong.

But that doesn’t explain everything. A collapse like this is far more structural. It’s likely, if not completely true, the problem is the Eagles’ roster isn’t nearly as good as we all thought it was.

Tampa Bay’s receivers ran through the Eagles’ secondary, sometimes barely touched. NFL.com says the Buccaneers finished with 219 yards after the catch and the large number of missed tackles isn’t just coaching or practice habits. That’s a personnel problem.

There’s little chance that you’d look at that Eagles’ roster now and rank it as the best in football.

This isn’t recency bias. We have a nice body of work to judge from. There’s really no other conclusion.

So wait a second? Was the roster terrible when they were kicking everyone’s butt? When they made the Super Bowl just a year ago? You’re not making any sense, Mike. Stick to writing about Star Trek, you loser.

The true test of a great roster is how it holds up over a season or, actually, several seasons. When attrition hits. When injuries hit. When the season becomes brutal and a team gets punched in the mouth. That’s the true test of a great roster.

The Baltimore Ravens are a good example of this. They lost one of the best tight ends in football in Mark Andrews, some other pieces, and they just churn along. That roster is so talented and deep if you broke it into pieces it could potentially spawn two playoff teams.

That’s what we all thought the Eagles were.

In June, ESPN did something else that in retrospect was pretty incredible. The site ranked every team’s core, defining core as not how many sit-ups Terrell Owens can do but instead ‘the five most important players to a team…the guys each roster is built around.’ The Eagles’ core was ranked third:

‘Roster core: QB Jalen Hurts, WR A.J. Brown, OT Lane Johnson, OLB Haason Reddick, CB Darius Slay. Average core age: 28.8. The Eagles’ elite core checks every positional value box, with high-end players at quarterback, wide receiver, offensive tackle, edge rusher and corner. And in reality, this exercise undersells the strength of the Eagles as a whole, because there are very talented players left off the list, including cornerback James Bradberry, receiver DeVonta Smith and center Jason Kelce. But even just looking at the five above, it’s easy to see why the Eagles are favorites to win the NFC again.’

That is a great core. Most likely. Probably.

We think. Right?

Right?

Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro center Jason Kelce addressed retirement rumors during this week’s podcast, ‘New Heights.’

Kelce reportedly told teammates that he was retiring after 13 seasons with the team, but Kelce said now is not the time to make that decision and got emotional talking about his future.

‘I don’t know what next year’s gonna look like,’ he said. ‘I didn’t announce what I was doing on purpose, despite I guess what’s been leaked to the media.’ 

‘I just don’t think you’re in a position after a game like that to really make that decision. I just don’t,’ Kelce added ‘There’s too much emotion in the moment, there’s too much going down in the moment to really fully grasp that decision. I’m not trying to be dramatic and continue to draw this thing out.’

The Eagles were ousted from the playoff on Monday after a 32-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Philadelphia lost six of its last seven games after starting the season 10-1.

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‘It’s just something that I think, when it’s time to officially announce what’s happening in the future, it’ll be done in a way that’s definitive and pays respect to a lot of people and individuals that have meant a lot to me and what has led to the career I’ve had,’ Kelce said. ‘And, you know, I don’t think that it would be respectful or even accurate to be able to do that right after a game like that.’