Maria Sharapova hires Jimmy Connors as new coach

The disappointing season for Maria Sharapova might soon turnaround thanks to her announcement that a new coach would be taking over.
Sharapova announced on Friday that she would be parting ways with Thomas Hogstedt, her coach of three years, and a day later already had a former Grand Slam champion lined up to help improve her game.
Jimmy Connors, the eight-time Grand Slam champion and former coach of Andy Roddick, is going to take full-time duties with the 26-year-old. The two have worked together for short stints in the past, but never on a full-time basis and Sharapova seems excited about the future.
"I am happy to announce that Jimmy Connors will be my new coach," Sharapova announced on her website. "I have known Jimmy for many years and we briefly worked together in 2008 just before the Australian Open. I am really excited about our new partnership and looking forward to the upcoming tournaments."

This season has been an interesting one for Sharapova. A semifinals loss to Li Na at the Australian Open was tough, but the Russian star did card two victories before heading to France and making it to the finals at the French Open. There Sharapova lost in straight sets to Serena Williams, but was hopeful to make a run at Wimbledon before getting upset in the second round by Michelle Larcher de Brito.
Her second round loss at Wimbledon was the earliest Sharapova had been bounced at the grass major since 2009, so a change seemed inevitable, especially when Hogstedt said he wouldn't be traveling as much with Sharapova in the near future.
Connors helped Roddick quickly after taking over as coach for the American in 2006. Roddick made his second U.S. Open final ever that year, but couldn't get past Roger Federer, who beat him in four sets.

Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers agree to 5-year, $107 million max contract

Chris Paul officially removed any mystery about his plans in free agency at 11:27 a.m. ET on Monday morning:
Yes, as just about everybody projected, the 28-year-old All-NBA point guard let the Internet writ large know that he intends to follow through on the verbal agreement he reportedly reached early Monday to re-up with the Los Angeles Clippers.
As soon as he is able to do so on July 10, following the league's moratorium on the completion of trades and free-agent signings, Paul will slap his John Hancock on a deal that will pay him as much as the league's collective bargaining agreement will allow over the next five years, which works out to $107 million. Plus, according to CBSSports.com's Ken Berger, Paul can opt out of the contract after its fourth year, which would enable him — assuming continued health and productivity — to pursue another lucrative, if not necessarily max-level, deal at age 32. Nice work if you can get it.
The agreement and subsequent tweet confirm what's been suspected since the Clippers completed a trade with the Boston Celtics that brought Doc Rivers to Los Angeles as the team's new head coach and senior vice president of basketball operations. Paul reportedly pushed for Rivers to replace Vinny Del Negro after three years at the Clippers' helm, and Rivers reportedly made the move west with the understanding that he'd be coaching Paul despite the guard having the option of testing the free-agent waters come 12:01 a.m. ET Monday. Rumors briefly circulated that Paul had interest in teaming up with fellow top-tier free agent Dwight Howard, perhaps in a tandem trip back to the East Coast with the Atlanta Hawks, such a pairing was always unlikely, especially since Paul never seemed to show serious interest in leaving the Clippers, especially once procuring Rivers' services became a serious possibility.
The onus now falls on the high-priced head coach and his nine-figure point guard to team with All-Star power forward Blake Griffin, hopefully-on-board-despite-being-heavily-shopped center DeAndre Jordan and an evolving cast of role players to help the Clippers build on the best season in franchise history, a campaign that saw them win a franchise-record 56 games and top the Pacific Division for the first time in team history, but also seem somewhat stuck in their evolution after a first-round postseason ouster at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies.
While continued development from Griffin and especially Jordan will be integral if the Clippers hope to advance past the conference semifinals for the first time in franchise history, Paul is the straw that stirs the drink. For my money (which, it is worth noting, is somewhat less than $107 million), he is the best point guard in the world, an unparalleled half-court orchestrator and facilitator who knows when to seek his own offense, ranks among the league's best fourth-quarter tacticians and plays some of the most opportunistic perimeter defense in the game.
You'd understand if some Clippers fans felt a bit dicey about paying an annual average of more than $20 million per season to someone who's had knee surgery, who has missed time with knee, hip and hand injuries over the past two seasons and who will be on the wrong side of 30 by the time this contract ends, but injury history aside, this is about as open-and-shut a max-contract case as there is in the league — Chris Paul is worth every penny you can pay him, so you pay him every penny you can.
With Paul's contract situation quickly settled, the Clippers will now move on to addressing the remainder of their roster. Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Marc J. Spears reported early Monday morning that the Clippers are interested in shooting guard O.J. Mayo, last of the Dallas Mavericks, who declined a $4.2 million player option for next season to become an unrestricted free agent.

When Kobe Will Retire ?

Los Angeles Lakers icon Kobe Bryant saw his 2012-13 campaign end under the difficult and depressing circumstances of tearing his Achilles tendon on the final weekend of the regular season. While that injury is a serious setback for any player, it perhaps meant more to the 34-year-old Bryant, who said in October that he might retire when his current contract expires after the 2013-14 season. We simply don't know how much energy he has left, or how willing he is to fight through a lengthy rehabilitation process and return at the top of the game.
However, it appears that this injury might have rekindled Kobe's desire to stay in the NBA for several seasons. In an interview for Brazilian television, he said he can see himself playing three or four more years.

"I could easily see myself playing another three or four years," he said on Brazilian television in a segment produced by Glenda Carqueijo.
The All-Star guard is currently recovering from a torn Achilles' tendon, suffered April 12. He's expected to return to the court by November or December.
Bryant is headed into the final year of his contract and will be 35 before next season. He's confident he'll fully recover from what was a devastating injury.

It should be noted that Kobe doesn't commit to that timetable, just that he sees at as a potential outcome. Nevertheless, it does make sense given what we know of his personality. Throughout his career, Bryant has been committed to staying relevant no matter the cost — he plays through injuries, amends his training in drastic ways, changes his diet, etc. After this injury, it will likely take him more time to return to his pre-tear level, simply because rehabilitation is a long process for even the most committed player. Kobe is as prideful as any NBA star we've seen in the last few decades, and he won't want to leave the league as an injured has-been.

On a more basic level, though, this might have been Kobe's reaction to the Lakers' season even without the Achilles tear. When he made his statements in October about playing through 2013-14, the Lakers looked likely to compete for championships in both this and next season — in other words, Kobe would retire while remaining a relevant figure. After a disappointing Lakers season, Bryant and his teammates have work to do to return to that level — the sort of task that might take as long as three or four seasons. Simply put, Bryant could just want to leave at a time when he feels like everyone will remember him as someone who competed for titles through his entire career. The Lakers might need three or four seasons to get there.

Maria Sharapova fires back at Serena Williams during pre-Wimbledon press conference

If the two biggest names in women's tennis meet again in the finals of a Grand Slam, like they did earlier this month in Paris, it might not be as warm between the two as it once was.

Maria Sharapova had her pre-Wimbledon press conference on Saturday and fired back at Serena Williams, who beat her in the French Open finals just a few weeks ago, concerning what Serena said during a Rolling Stone interview.
Williams got into trouble with her comments about a 16-year-old rape victim, but that wasn't the only thing that raised a few eyebrows in the tennis world.

Serena commented on an "anonymous" player, saying, "There are people who live, breathe and dress tennis. I mean, seriously, give it a rest ...She begins every interview with 'I'm so happy. I'm so lucky' – it's so boring," says Serena in a loud voice. "She's still not going to be invited to the cool parties. And, hey, if she wants to be with the guy with a black heart, go for it." (An educated guess is she's talking about Sharapova, who is now dating Grigor Dimitrov, one of Serena's rumored exes).

Sharapova obviously took offense to what was said and let it be known that she wasn't so happy about it to the media on Saturday.
"Obviously I have a tremendous amount of respect for Serena and what she's achieved on the court," Sharapova said. "If she wants to talk about something personal, maybe she should talk about her relationship and her boyfriend that was married and is getting a divorce and has kids. Talk about other things, but not draw attention to other things."

Yikes. The person in question that Sharapova seems to be focusing on is coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who Serena has been linked to in the past, but if nothing else it gives us a great talking point heading into the biggest tennis tournament of the year. It also gives credence to the theory that professional sports is just one big, dramatic seventh grade lunch table and rumors fly just like they did when we were kids.

Miami Heat run up $100K champagne tab at post-Game 7 bash, club owner comps them again

After LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the rest of the world champion Miami Heat — including owner Micky Arison, team president Pat Riley and head coach Erik Spoelstra — cut loose at the Miami nightclub Story following their Game 7 win over the San Antonio Spurs, there was no question that the back-to-back-championship celebration would be a big, loud, colorful, bottle-popping spectacle. The only real question was whether the victors would top the $200,000 bar tab they rolled up at LIV in June 2012 after beating the Oklahoma City Thunder for their first NBA championship.
The answer, it seems, is no. According to ESPN.com's Darren Rovell, the team only managed to ring up a paltry $100,000 in champagne cost. (File this under "acting like you've been there before," I guess.)

While still obviously staggeringly high, the halved bar tab is sort of surprising considering, for the second straight year, the owner of the club hosting the party ensured that the Heat didn't actually have to pay for their drinks.
[Club owner] David Grutman said the players ordered 100 bottles of Dom Perignon and three 3-liter bottles of champagne. Grutman said the club sells the standard 750-milliliter bottles of Dom Perignon for $850 each and the club sells 3-liter bottles, called Jeroboams, for $5,000.
"I'm not going to charge the Heat," Grutman said of the $100,000 value of comped alcohol.
Well, that's nice of you, Mr. Grutman!

As a couple of readers have noted, the six-figure retail price tag likely represents something closer to $10,000 in actual outlay by the bar itself, given the markup on stuff like top-shelf booze. And while that's still quite a chunk of change, there's value in Grutman doing whatever he can to treat high-rollers like the Heat like kings to make sure they speak kindly of Story and LIV. You've got to spend money to make money, as the saying goes, and I'm betting a Story packed with non-comped fans, partiers and onlookers did a fairly bustling business on Thursday night and Friday morning. (Plus, if you didn't know what Story was before, now you do, which is worth something, right?)

While the Heat's (at least) $100,000 bar bill didn't top last year's model, it does fall in the ballpark of the bash Mark Cuban threw after his Dallas Mavericks beat the Heat in six games to win the 2011 NBA title. After that game, the Mavs' owner and his championship squad rolled through LIV and started splashing cash, with Dirk Nowitzki and company taking down a massive bottle of Ace of Spades that, by itself, cost nearly six figures. And as Rovell notes, Grutman didn't comp these Heat-beating guests:
LIV charged Cuban $90,000 for a 15-liter bottle of Arnaud de Brignac champagne, also known as Ace of Spades. Cuban didn't seem to mind; he still left a 22 percent tip.
"We were in the back because his credit card was denied," Grutman recalled. "So he called up the people at the Centurion Card and said, 'This is Mark Cuban. We just won the championship. Can I please spend some money?'"
Grutman said the purchase by the billionaire then was authorized.
Cuban later said the expense, and the $20,000 tip, was "worth every penny." As, I'm sure, was the Heat's $100,000-plus night at Story, for all involved.
Now that we've nailed down the Heat's party bar tab, just one mystery remains — how much did Shane Battier drop at Denny's? If it's anything less than $100,000, I'm going to be so bummed out.