The last team with a roster as young as the Oklahoma City Thunder’s to win the NBA championship was the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, led by Bill Walton. The Blazers’ starting lineup also featured 26-year-old guard Dave Twardzik, a two-time All-American for Old Dominion who played for the Virginia Squires before heading West. A very subtle, but nice, local connection.

Future watch: Are the Thunder poised for more titles? Anything’s possible. But seven different NBA champions in the past seven years suggest Oklahoma City won’t repeat.

Generation next: In the afterglow of the NBA draft, top pick Cooper Flagg is being added to the short list of American-born hopefuls who someday might loosen the stranglehold foreign players have on the MVP award. Imported talents have won the past seven MVPs. The youngest former MVP from the U.S. is 35-year-old James Harden.

Streak broken: No Kentucky players went in the draft’s first round. It’s the first time that’s happened since 2009.

Idle thought: We won’t have a full appreciation for what the draftees bring to the league until we get a good look at their tattoos.

Dubious achievement: With its former stars Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey selected second and fifth overall, Rutgers (15-17) became the first college program to miss the NCAA Tournament despite having two players who went on to be picked in the top five of that year’s draft.

Pop culture: This month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of “Jaws.” The summer blockbuster kept more people out of the ocean than an oil spill.

Swan song: Aaron Rodgers says he’s “pretty sure” his season with the Steelers will be his final season. I’m pretty sure America will get over its disappointment.

New York state of mind: Doesn’t appear the Knicks had what anyone would call a savvy recruitment strategy for replacing Tom Thibodeau. An incompetent talent search makes it appear as if the coach New York dumped is irreplaceable.

Overachievers: Helped by the Yankees’ June swoon, the Rays are nipping at New York’s heels. Surprised? Maybe we shouldn’t be. Always playing under the radar and with lineups that defy identification, the Rays for many years have been baseball’s peskiest franchise.

Sleeper in Seattle: Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is the most interesting, if underplayed, story of the season’s first half. The 28-year-old switch-hitter is the big-league leader in home runs and RBIs and trails only Aaron Judge in slugging percentage. He’s a leading MVP candidate who still needs a proper introduction to most of the country.

In the shadows: With few exceptions, the least recognized, most interchangeable figures representing our major sports teams are MLB managers. NFL special teams coaches have higher profiles than baseball’s bench jockeys.

Open and shut: Judging from Wimbledon’s eight different women’s champions in eight years, that side of the tournament remains wide open. As for male contenders, no one’s mentioned in the same paragraph with Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic.

Inevitable: Maybe nothing provokes the sporting public for whom March Madness is a religious experience than the suspicion that the NCAA is about to expand the men’s basketball tournament from 68 to 76 teams. The NCAA can’t resist trying to fix what ain’t broken. Not when so much money is in play.

Bob Molinaro is a former Virginian-Pilot sports columnist. His Weekly Briefing runs Fridays in The Pilot and Daily Press. He can be reached at bob5molinaro@gmail.com and via Twitter@BobMolinaro.

Originally Published: June 26, 2025 at 2:38 PM EDT