Anthony Elanga's breakaway goal against his former club earned high-flying Nottingham Forest a 1-0 victory over Manchester United in the Premier League on Tuesday.

The Swede left Old Trafford to make way for big-money signing Antony two years ago and played like he had a point to prove at the City Ground, scoring what proved to be the winner, having run two thirds of the pitch, just five minutes in.

Diogo Dalot's first-half header came out off the crossbar, while substitute Mason Mount fizzed a late strike wide, but otherwise the below-par visitors were again lacking the cutting edge they need to rectify their miserable season.

The victory helps Forest continue their remarkable campaign, with Nuno Espirito Santo's third-placed side now eight points clear of Chelsea in fourth, while United's first league loss in five leaves them 13th in the standings.

"We controlled the game, but we already knew this team can score goals out of nothing," United boss Ruben Amorim told TNT Sports.

"When they scored we changed the game a little bit from what they want. We tried with good opportunities, but in the last third, the last pass, the last assist wasn't there. Then if we don't have that, we cannot score goals."

Following their 3-2 win at Old Trafford in December, Forest came into the contest looking to complete their first league double over United since 1991-92 under Brian Clough.

They were soon on their way as Elanga made his former club pay for some slack defending, Forest scoring the opening goal of a Premier League match for the 23rd time this term - more than any other side.

In contrast, only Leicester City have conceded the opening goal in more matches among all Premier League sides than United in all competitions.

United continued to struggle to create any real openings of note. Amorim summoned Rasmus Højlund, fresh from breaking his 22-hour goal drought against Leicester last time out, for a second-half reshuffle.

The visitors, however, remained toothless in attack. The introduction of Harry Maguire late on gave them an additional threat, with one effort in stoppage time cleared off the line by Forest defender Murillo.

Forest held on comfortably as they moved a step closer to returning to Europe's elite club competition next season for the first time in 45 years.

"Suffer, hard work, believe, helping each other, clearance on the line," Nuno said. "It was a very hard game for us.

"The records, the boys are breaking all of them and today the City Ground was part of the game."

United fell to their 13th Premier League defeat, their second-most in a single campaign in the competition, one short of their record of 14 in 2023-24.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Philadelphia Eagles CEO Jeffrey Lurie signaled that a contract extension for coach Nick Sirianni will be coming soon.

"Nick is going to be our coach. We don't talk publicly [about contracts], we never have, but you guys I'm sure will find out soon enough that Nick will be our coach going forward," Lurie said at his annual news conference at the league meetings. "He has done an outstanding job."

Sirianni is entering the final year of the five-year deal he signed when becoming a head coach for the first time in 2021.

He has compiled a 48-20 regular-season record during his time in Philadelphia, which is the third-highest career winning percentage (.706) in the Super Bowl era.

He has guided the team to two Super Bowl appearances, including a decisive win this past February against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Eagles suffered a 1-6 collapse down the stretch in 2023 and got off to a 2-2 start this past season, seemingly putting Sirianni on shaky ground, but the team responded by going 16-1 down the stretch, including the postseason, to deliver Philadelphia its second Lombardi Trophy.

"Everything that I had hoped for with Nick, he embodies, whether it's connection, intelligence in so many ways from football intelligence, emotional intelligence, managing of people, hiring of assistant coaches, growth mindset at all times," Lurie said.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- On the heels of the San Francisco 49ers' free agent exodus, owner Jed York spent part of Tuesday morning explaining the reasoning for the team's offseason approach publicly for the first time.

According to York, the decision to bid farewell to 17 players via free agency, trade or release and not spend much on outside free agents was largely tied to the payday coming soon for quarterback Brock Purdy.

It's why York chuckled and shrugged off the notion that he's been "cheap" this offseason after ranking at or near the top of the league in spending over the past five years.

"I've been called worse," York said. "I get it. Fans care. You want to win. And when you're in a world where everybody is watching the NFL the first week of free agency or at least the first few days of free agency, it's a frenzy. ... When you're not overly active in that space, it gets easy to say, 'Oh, you don't want to win.' ... I don't know that, as we looked at the board, that there was somebody that we felt made that type of an impact more so than making the decision to try to go pay Brock."

As far back as last year's league meeting in Orlando, Florida, York has maintained that he is looking forward to signing off on what will be one of the most significant raises in NFL history.

Despite Purdy's uneven 2024 season in which key members of his supporting cast were injured for much of the season and the quarterback's numbers dipped from the near-MVP-level performance he had in 2023, York remains steadfast in wanting to keep Purdy for the long haul.

As the Niners assessed their roster-building approach for this offseason after dropping to 6-11 and again failing to break through for the franchise's sixth Lombardi Trophy, York said the team solidified the decision to pay Purdy midway through last season.

On Tuesday, York called Purdy a top-10 quarterback in the league, a tacit acknowledgement that a commensurate payday is in the offing.

"I think he is," York said. "I think he's great. Especially when you combine him with [coach] Kyle [Shanahan] and you combine him with what we have, and he's a heck of a quarterback. And we want him to be here for a long, long time."

Once that decision was cemented, the 49ers forged ahead with the knowledge that the offseason would likely bring far more departures than arrivals. In the opening days of free agency, San Francisco said goodbye to key starters such as linebacker Dre Greenlaw, cornerback Charvarius Ward, safety Talanoa Hufanga and guard Aaron Banks. They also traded wideout Deebo Samuel and running back Jordan Mason and released veteran defensive linemen Leonard Floyd and Maliek Collins.

In many of those cases, the Niners took on accelerated dead money on the salary cap, a number that exceeds $86 million for 2025 but clears the ledger a bit in 2026 and beyond. Such is the price to pay when one of the oldest teams in the league has continued to try to jump through a Super Bowl window before it closes, to no avail, and wants to pay its quarterback.

"It's just a math thing," York said. "When you sit down with your guys and figure out where do you want to go, what do you want to build, when you make the decision that you want to pay a quarterback that has obviously been underpaid for his first three seasons in the NFL. When you make that change, you have to make sacrifices somewhere. It's a decision that we made collectively, and we're hoping that we make somebody the highest-paid player in the history of our franchise."

The 49ers' more prudent approach to spending this offseason has coincided with other storylines surrounding the team and the York family when it comes to adding to its sports portfolio and a potential cash infusion via the sale of a chunk of the team.

49ers Enterprises already owns the Leeds United soccer team, and it's been reported that an agreement to buy Rangers FC in Glasgow, Scotland, is also in the offing. That has left some fans wondering whether the Niners are tightening their financial belts with an eye toward preserving funds for that deal. Nothing is done on that front just yet, according to York.

"We haven't done anything there," York said. "Leeds is obviously under the umbrella, but those are completely separate from the 49ers. Where we can tie brands together and sort of take our best practices of operating and things like that, [we do,] but in terms of financials, they don't overlap at all."

Similar questions about a need for an influx of cash have also been posed in the midst of reports that the Niners are looking to sell a 10% minority stake to a private equity firm or other qualified investors.

York said his family gets approached "probably on a weekly basis" by parties interested in buying a piece of the 97% of the team his family controls. But he called any potential deal there a "family asset allocation decision" based on the wants and needs of various family members.

"It's just one of those things where if there's an opportunity that makes sense, we would always explore that, but I'm not sure what we're going to end up doing," York said. "And if we do, we would try to find the right people who would help bolster everything that we're doing in and around the team, on the field, off the field and just make sure that we had good partners that are with us."

In the meantime, a deal for Purdy remains the focus for York and the Niners. While general manager John Lynch expressed optimism Monday that a Purdy deal could be done soon despite the team's penchant for dragging such things out in recent years, York declined to put a timeline on it happening.

"I don't negotiate contracts, but any conversations that I've had with Brock have been great," York said. "I feel good. When he's ready, we'll sit down and finish it. It shouldn't be that hard to do."

Six-time Pro-Bowl defensive lineman Calais Campbell has finalized a one-year deal to return to the Arizona Cardinals for his 18th NFL season, the team announced Wednesday.

The one-year deal is for $5.5 million and has a maximum value of $7.5 million, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Campbell, 38, was the team's second-round pick in 2008 and played with the Cardinals until 2016. He will add depth to a defensive front that's gone through a bit of a remodel this offseason with the addition of tackle Dalvin Tomlinson and edge rusher Josh Sweat.

He's not expected to start but will have certain packages designed to get him on the field. He'll also add a veteran presence to not just a defensive line room but a locker room that's looking to take the next step and make a playoff push this coming season.

Campbell signed with the Miami Dolphins late in the 2024 offseason, joining the team just before training camp. He immediately made an impact as a leader on a team many believed had Super Bowl aspirations.

While the Dolphins underwhelmed on the field for much of the 2024 season, Campbell shined and recorded his highest pass rush win rate since 2019. He finished third on the team with five sacks and second on the team with 12 tackles for a loss. He led all defensive linemen with a 46% run stop win rate.

The former Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award winner's season got off to a surprising start off the field, however. Before the Dolphins' season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Campbell was placed in handcuffs by a Miami-Dade police officer just outside of Hard Rock Stadium, while attempting to defuse an ongoing situation with officers and teammate Tyreek Hill. Campbell was eventually released and was not cited.

He played in that day's game against the Jaguars, recording a tackle for a loss on the first play from scrimmage.

Campbell was noncommittal about his career plans when asked after the 2024 regular-season finale, saying he needed to give himself time to rest and discuss the matter with his family. He added that his performance this past season would likely impact his decision moving forward.

Selected to six Pro Bowls and one first-team All-Pro nod (2017), Campbell has 110.5 sacks in 17 seasons. In addition to the Cardinals and Dolphins, Campbell has played for the Baltimore Ravens and Atlanta Falcons in his career.

ESPN's Josh Weinfuss and Marcel Louis-Jacques contributed to this report.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- NFL owners plan to continue discussions about the Philadelphia Eagles' short-yardage tush push play after tabling a proposal Tuesday to ban it, league officials said.

The Green Bay Packers authored the proposal, which earned the support of 16 NFL teams, two sources told ESPN's Kalyn Kahler. NFL bylaws require a minimum of 24 votes to approve a change. The topic is likely to be revisited when owners gather for their spring meeting May 20-21 in Eagan, Minnesota.

The deliberations occupied owners, general managers and coaches for much of this week's annual league meeting, mostly because it seemed to target the Super Bowl LII champions for a legal play that has been largely unstoppable over the past three seasons. The Packers' proposal was written specifically for the play, unlike most rule proposals, by prohibiting an offensive player from immediately pushing a teammate who is lined up directly behind the snapper and receives the snap.

While there were some subjective concerns about the safety risk of the tush push, the NFL's health and safety department had no data that suggested a single injury had occurred as a result of the Eagles or any other team using it. The Buffalo Bills were the only other team that used it regularly last season, and they combined with the Eagles to call 65 of the 101 tush push runs in 2024.

But committee chairman Rich McKay said last week, and reiterated Tuesday, that the league generally frowns on rule changes that target only one or two teams. The NFL prohibited players to push ball carriers for much of its history before changing its rules to allow it in 2005, citing the difficulty of officiating it. During Tuesday's meeting, McKay said, the Packers offered to change the focus on potentially reinstating the historic rule.

The distinction, sources told ESPN, is that it would also ban players from pushing ball carriers downfield and thus eliminate the focus on the Eagles' play.

"We've been very open to whatever data exists on the tush push, and there's just been no data that shows it isn't a very, very safe play. If it weren't, we wouldn't be pushing the tush push."

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie

"A lot of teams had a lot of views," McKay said. "I think No. 1, I'm going to go back to what I said the other day, which is you'd never like any discussion in any room to be projected towards a team or two. It's never something we've ever liked doing.

"So, I think the idea [Tuesday] was, as opposed to voting on this particular proposal today, Green Bay asked, 'Could we go back and talk about reintroducing the 2004 language, study it, understand it and talk about it again when we get to May.'"

Packers president Mark Murphy later added: "Really what we talked about was going back to the language we had before in the league up until, I think, 2005 was when the change was made. So that would basically prohibit pushing the runner."

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday "there are safety issues that are being considered" with the tush push, while acknowledging there's very little data on the play.

"It's beyond data. There's also the mechanism of injury that we study ... that leads us to show the risk involved with a particular play," he said.

"... I do think there's a lot of discussion about going back to the previous rule [pre-2005] ... The reality of that is, I think that makes a lot of sense in many ways because that expands it beyond just that single play. There are a lot of plays where you see someone pushing or pulling somebody that are not in the tush push formation that I think do have an increased risk of injury. And so, I think the committee will look at that and come back in May with some proposals," he added.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie confirmed the league "probably will be discussing it in May" and that the team has to be "ready for every result."

Lurie made a case in favor of the play at his annual news conference at the league meeting Tuesday.

"We've been very open to whatever data exists on the tush push, and there's just been no data that shows it isn't a very, very safe play. If it weren't, we wouldn't be pushing the tush push," he said.

Lurie called it a "precision play" that is effective for Philly in part because of its top-end offensive line and a quarterback in Jalen Hurts, who can squat 600 pounds.

"I don't ever remember a play being banned because a single team or a few teams were running it effectively. It's part of what I think most of us love about football is it's a chess match. Let the chess match play out. And if for any reason it does get banned, we'll try to be the very best at short yardage situations. We've got a lot of ideas there," he said.

Although there was no injury data to support a ban, NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills did tell owners this week that the mechanics of the play could lead to injuries, sources told ESPN. Another source told ESPN that some owners warned their colleagues that a serious injury was just a matter of time.

The play has been enormously successful for the Eagles, who have scored 27 touchdowns and recorded 92 total first downs on it in the past three years. They scored 11 touchdowns on it with 32 first downs during their Super Bowl run in the 2024 season.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said the team coaches its tush push play no differently than standard quarterback sneaks.

"I think it's an exciting play," Sirriani said Tuesday. "It was really cool to hear some people talk about it this week and what they think of it, the excitement it brings to the game."

ESPN Eagles reporter Tim McManus contributed to this story.

Texas A&M's Buzz Williams has finalized a six-year deal to become the next coach at Maryland, sources told ESPN.

The move, announced Tuesday by Maryland, brings the veteran head coach from the SEC to the Big Ten and marks one of the highest-profile moves in this coaching carousel.

Williams has reached 11 NCAA tournaments over his 18 years as a head coach -- a run that includes five consecutive NCAA appearances at Marquette, three straight at Virginia Tech and each of the last three years at Texas A&M.

Williams has gone 373-228 as a college head coach, which includes one year at New Orleans in 2006-07. This season, Texas A&M finished 23-11, came in fifth in the rugged SEC and earned a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Williams will replace Kevin Willard, who left for Villanova after a protracted and awkward exit from Maryland that included a blunt assessment of the program's deficiencies.

Williams' buyout to leave Texas A&M dropped to $1 million on Tuesday, per his contract. Maryland is set to receive $2 million from Villanova for Willard's departure.

Williams takes over a job with national championship expectations, as Gary Williams won the 2002 national title there. Since arriving in the Big Ten in 2014, the results haven't matched the consistent success that Williams delivered in the ACC. The Terrapins have reached the Sweet 16 just twice since joining the Big Ten, once under Mark Turgeon and under Willard this year.

Buzz Williams is a known program builder and brings familiarity with the general recruiting footprint from his time at Virginia Tech. The strength of the Maryland job lies in leveraging the DMV area, where Williams brings familiarity.

Williams was at Virginia Tech from 2014 to '19, going 100-69 over five seasons before leaving for Texas A&M. He led the Hokies to three consecutive NCAA tournaments for the first time in school history.

The move marks the fourth power conference coach to leave one power league for another during this cycle, joining Willard's jump to Villanova, Sean Miller's move from Xavier to Texas and Darian DeVries' jump from West Virginia to Indiana.

Three players from the Detroit Pistons and two from the Minnesota Timberwolves have received suspensions as a result of Sunday night's skirmish between the two teams, the league announced Tuesday.

Pistons center Isaiah Stewart received the stiffest penalty -- a two-game ban -- while teammates Marcus Sasser and Ron Holland II each received a one-game suspension. Minnesota's Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid also were hit with one-game bans.

In handing out the penalties, NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars said Stewart received the longer ban because of his "repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts."

Reid and DiVincenzo will serve their suspensions on Tuesday vs. Denver, while Stewart, Holland and Sasser will miss Wednesday's game vs. Oklahoma City.

The skirmish began with 8:36 left in the first half of Sunday's game with the Pistons leading 39-30. Stewart had received a technical foul just moments earlier when he bumped DiVincenzo hard after the whistle. Then Holland was called for a foul as he slapped the ball out of Reid's hands near the baseline.

The two exchanged words, DiVincenzo stepped between them and grabbed Holland's jersey, and soon all 10 players on the court and multiple coaches and trainers were part of the scrum, which included players falling into spectators seated along the baseline.

As the players were being separated, Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and Timberwolves assistant Pablo Prigioni were screaming at each other and had to be separated by team personnel.

Bickerstaff and Prigioni were among those ejected but didn't receive suspensions.

"Obviously things went too far," Bickerstaff said after the game. "But what you see is guys looking out for one another, guys trying to protect one another, guys trying to have each other's backs. ... Those are nonnegotiables in our locker room."

The game featured 12 technical fouls, the most in an NBA game since March 23, 2005, per Opta Stats.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

With two weeks to go in the NBA's regular season, there are two open head coaching jobs.

On Friday, the Memphis Grizzlies fired longtime coach Taylor Jenkins, almost three months to the day of a similarly abrupt and surprising firing in Sacramento, as the Kings dismissed Mike Brown amid a losing streak in late December.

Will more jobs open over the next several weeks? Last season, seven teams changed coaches, including three -- the Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns -- that did so after making the playoffs.

Here's our annual look at the NBA's coaching carousel, with the pros and cons of each vacancy and who could fill them:

Memphis Grizzlies

• 2024-25 record: 44-31 (No. 5 in West)

• Previous coach: Taylor Jenkins (fired March 28; assistant Tuomas Iisalo takes over on interim basis)

• Lead executive: Zach Kleiman (hired in 2019)

Positive: A promising young core

Despite suffering injuries throughout the season, the Grizzlies are still in the top five in the Western Conference standings, and with the league's fifth-best net rating -- trailing only the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets.

With Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis' core is entering its prime, which should give the Grizzlies runway to contend for the rest of this decade. Kleiman has shown that he can find talented second-round and undrafted players, giving Memphis a deep and versatile roster behind that star talent.

One NBA executive said this is a team that, if things break right, is reminiscent of the Cleveland Cavaliers last season before Kenny Atkinson came in and the franchise improved this season. That's the kind of boost Kleiman and the Grizzlies believe is possible.

Negatives: Small market, recent instability

Memphis is far from an NBA glamour market, and this team has had a lot of friction and uncertainty over the past year.

The Grizzlies fired virtually Jenkins' entire coaching staff last summer, bringing in -- among others -- Iisalo and Noah LaRoche to fill it out. Then, not only was Jenkins dismissed Friday, but so was LaRoche, who hired several player development coaches.

Now, on to the roster. In addition to numerous injuries, the Grizzlies have had some off-court issues with Morant over the years. The team had mitigated Morant's absence thanks to its impressive depth and, until Friday, Jenkins' work on the sidelines.

Now, on to the roster. In addition to numerous injuries, the Grizzlies have had a series of off-court issues with Morant over the years. The team had mitigated Morant's absence thanks to its other two stars, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane, its impressive depth and, until Friday, Jenkins' work on the sidelines.

Who could get the job?

Although he has only an interim tag, the expectation around the league is that Iisalo will get a long look. The Grizzlies brought him from Europe last offseason and put him on Jenkins' staff, and he will get a chance to show what he can do in the playoffs. If Iisalo is not the choice, it's hard to know Memphis' next step.

Sacramento Kings

• 2024-25 record: 36-39 (No. 10 in West)

• Previous coach: Mike Brown (fired in December; assistant Doug Christie takes over on interim basis)

• Lead executive: Monte McNair (hired in 2020)

Positive: Veteran, ready-to-win talent

It's hard to project Sacramento winning a title with its roster. But a coach taking over a team with Domantas Sabonis, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray and Malik Monk has a chance to be competitive in each game. That gives the Kings' vacancy a boost, given the typical level of talent at open jobs.

With all of those players under team control for at least a couple of more seasons, there is some runway for them to play together, adding to the appeal for a new coach.

Negatives: Small market, decades of instability

Here's all you need to know about the Kings: Since moving to Sacramento in 1984, two coaches have had at least one full season with a winning record: Rick Adelman, who did it for eight straight seasons from 1999 to 2006, and Mike Brown the past two seasons. Sacramento has made the playoffs in three of the 33 seasons not coached by Adelman, underscoring the difficulty of this job.

The departure of assistant general manager Wes Wilcox, who took the GM job for the Utah Utes earlier this month, also points to potential further destabilization this offseason, and at least the possibility of more changes in the Kings' front office. Another drawback is the club's unwillingness to pay into the luxury tax, something owner Vivek Ranadive has avoided.

Who could get the job?

Christie has long-standing ties to the organization, going back to being a starter on those iconic teams of the early 2000s under Adelman. Christie has done a solid job the past few months since taking over for Brown. Christie will likely get a look to remain as coach, but Ranadive has repeatedly hired big names over the past decade -- including George Karl, Dave Joerger, Luke Walton and Brown -- so there's certainly a chance he pursues a bigger name this summer.

Reporting by Ramona Shelburne, Tim MacMahon and Michael C. Wright

SO MUCH HAS been said in the war of words between Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green and the Memphis Grizzlies organization that it's hard to believe just how close he came to signing there as a free agent in the summer of 2023.

"Very," a source close to Green told ESPN, when asked how serious Green was about leaving the franchise he'd won four titles with to join the young upstarts he'd feuded with so publicly during a heated six-game playoff series a year earlier.

Green had even called Warriors coach Steve Kerr and teammates Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to warn them that he was close to joining the Grizzlies via a lucrative sign-and-trade deal, sources told ESPN, before Warriors owner Joe Lacob and new general manager Mike Dunleavy swooped in with a four-year, $100 million extension to keep him in the Bay.

The Grizzlies were just as serious about acquiring Green, sources said, believing his experience, basketball intelligence and toughness were what the franchise needed as it tried to move past a disastrous season in which superstar point guard Ja Morant had been suspended eight games by NBA commissioner Adam Silver for brandishing a firearm in a social media post, and then the Grizzlies endured a disappointing first-round series loss to the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers.

Every analysis the team did on its season called for swapping out brash, bruising forward Dillon Brooks for a more mature veteran, someone with a similar edge whom Morant and uber-talented young power forward Jaren Jackson Jr. would respect and learn from.

Green, who'd had a controversial year of his own in Golden State, was the Grizzlies' top choice and Memphis did everything it could -- even offering more than he ultimately signed for in Golden State, sources said -- to lure him away.

They wanted Green so badly, sources said, because he saw not only how good the Grizzlies were during their epic 2022 playoff series, but also how far they still had to go.

"Memphis is going to get their reality check," Green said after that series.

And indeed, everything that has happened in Memphis since that high-water mark in 2022 has been something of a reality check.

Ultimately, Memphis pivoted to sign veteran Derrick Rose and trade for guard Marcus Smart in an attempt to fill the void left by Brooks, whose toughness and work ethic were critical, but perhaps underappreciated, cultural tone-setters for the young Grizzlies. But the Smart deal didn't pay dividends, prompting the Grizzlies to trade him to Washington in a salary-dump deal before this year's deadline.

They'd also tried to trade for Mikal Bridges and Dorian Finney-Smith, sources said, because they knew they needed an elite wing defender to replace Brooks.

It remains to be seen whether Morant, Jackson and Desmond Bane are good enough to develop into the kind of championship contenders they once seemed destined to become.

If they are, what will it take to get them back on that track?

The short answer, the Grizzlies believe, was the decision they made that longtime coach Taylor Jenkins would not be the man to lead them there. He was fired, in one of the more shockingly timed firings in recent NBA history, just nine games before the playoffs were set to begin.

The long answer is more complicated, but it still centers on optimizing Morant. And they're running out of time to find the right leadership and direction to do so.

ONE DAY AFTER the team fired Jenkins, Memphis general manager Zach Kleiman stood in front of a lectern and explained his decision to fire his head coach and two assistants so late in the season.

"Urgency is a core principle of ours," he said. "My expectations are clarity of direction."

He didn't elaborate beyond those two main points.

But anyone close to the team this season knows the lack of clarity he was referring to.

Offensively, the Grizzlies had become something of a science experiment this season, offering glimpses at how several radical offensive concepts from Europe, and spacing principles found in hockey and soccer, would work in the NBA, but also how difficult it is to get full buy-in from players to implement them.

There were two architects and one supervisor -- Jenkins -- charged with blending the competing visions. One was Tuomas Iisalo, a Finnish coach who'd had a meteoric rise in Europe by implementing innovative offensive concepts around pick-and-roll schemes, pacing and offensive rebounding. Another was player development specialist Noah LaRoche, whom the Grizzlies had lured from a consulting role with the San Antonio Spurs and charged with teaching an offense that prioritized spacing and largely did away with pick-and-rolls and dribble handoffs.

Jenkins, the fifth-longest-tenured NBA coach, had never met either of the assistants before interviewing them, one source said.

Still, the Grizzlies paid a seven-figure buyout to Paris Basketball, which Iisalo (pronounced EE-za-lo) coached to a EuroCup championship last season. Memphis also gave Iisalo and LaRoche seven-figure salaries. That's especially lucrative for a second-row assistant such as LaRoche, but it's also extraordinarily unusual for a second-row assistant to have his fingerprints all over the revamping of a team's offensive system. In fact, Memphis hired LaRoche first (in May 2024) with the intention of building the staff of assistants around him, one source said. The club wouldn't bring in Iisalo until nearly two months later.

To make room for these new voices, Kleiman insisted Jenkins replace five of the assistant coaches who'd been with him throughout his time in Memphis: Brad Jones, Blake Ahearn, Scoonie Penn, Vitaly Potapenko and Sonia Raman.

Jenkins went along with the request, in an effort to be a good partner, said a league source, who added, "Taylor shouldn't have allowed that to happen."

The coach was so upset at the news he'd have to deliver to each of his longtime assistants, he invited each over to his house in Memphis for individual sessions.

The front office felt the new approach needed space to get off the ground, according to a source. So the club cut ties with virtually everyone associated with the team's ways of the past.

"It was a total shock because we'd already had our exit meetings and were preparing for the summer," one former assistant said. "We'd all gone away for a few weeks and came back to start work again. Taylor felt so bad about it. But apparently they decided to go in another direction."

"Going in another direction" has become cliché -- a nice way of glossing over a difficult situation and avoiding specific issues. But in this case that's exactly what it was.

"They were going all-in on these new concepts," another source close to the situation said.

The immediate, unintended effect was to signal to the rest of the league, and the Grizzlies' players, that Jenkins was on thin ice.

"Players aren't stupid," another source said. "They know where this is heading when you fire five assistants after the season."

And when the job is getting players to buy into new offensive concepts, already uncomfortable for most NBA players, being taught different schemes by two assistant coaches immediately undercut Jenkins' authority.

He had overcome that already after Kleiman hired him as a first-time head coach in 2018. Jenkins had established a strong reputation as an assistant on Mike Budenholzer's staff in Atlanta and Milwaukee. But he had a nontraditional background to say the least, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School of Business and eschewing a career on Wall Street for NBA coaching.

He had played high school ball and intramural basketball at Penn, but that was it. Still, players routinely said he won them over with his work ethic, basketball IQ and affable personality. It didn't hurt that he was a burly, 6-foot-3 guy who could jump in against anyone on the court.

But this was an entirely different challenge.

"The principles that we're talking about, the amount of movement that we're going to have from off of the ball is going to be significantly different," Jenkins said on the first day of training camp, which was held at the Ensworth School, a luxurious private school on the outskirts of Nashville.

"But some of our lead core guys that drive our offense, we have to react to how they're adopting the system and make sure that we're all fitting in the right place."

Simplified, Memphis' offense consisted of utilizing pace with purpose and keeping the ball off the floor. If there's an easy bucket to be had, take it immediately, otherwise morph into attack mode to break down and tax the opposing defense. Some of the offense was predicated on a player breaking down his man one-on-one without a screen. Initially, Morant seemed open to the new concepts that Jenkins and Kleiman had considered a year before implementing them. "I'm seeing a lot of different looks now," Morant said. "I'm getting a lot of catch-and-shoot opportunities, back cuts, catch on the run, so I feel like it plays right into my hands and allows me to get better looks and not have to create so much."

But when asked how he felt about playing off the ball more, which is what the new offense called for, Morant seemed less enthusiastic.

"If that's what it is," he said. "Whatever coach wanna call, man, I'm fine with it."

FOR ALL OF his individual gifts, Morant has never been a great pick-and-roll player. He's not even above average, according to ESPN Research.

Morant averages just 0.99 points per direct pick as the ball handler in his career when using an on-ball screen. That ranks 39th among 56 players to run at least 5,000 on-ball screens as the ball handler since 2019-20.

He also has just a 44.7% effective field goal percentage on jumpers when coming off an on-ball screen in his career. Only Russell Westbrook has been worse among 111 players to take at least 750 jumpers when coming off an on-ball screen since 2019-20.

The appeal of an offense that doesn't rely on pick-and-rolls is obvious for a franchise built around Morant's offensive talents.

LaRoche's system replaces pick-and-rolls with relocations. Players move away from the ball handler into space, instead of bringing their defender toward the player with the ball. The goal is to create space and quality shots in the shortest time possible.

Iisalo's expertise was to be deployed in coaching pace and the transition offense, where Morant excels.

Statistically, the results were immediate and impressive. The Grizzlies led the NBA in scoring, pace and ranked second in offensive rebounding rate as they bolted to a 35-16 record. Jackson's versatile skill set also shined, the big man averaging 22.4 points with a true shooting percentage of 59.7%, both near his career bests.

The Grizzlies set the fewest ball screens in the league by a wide margin -- 40.4 per game, almost 10 fewer than any other team, according to Second Spectrum data. The Grizzlies have run a total of 49.8 ball screens and dribble handoffs per game, the fewest in the NBA since tracking began in the 2013-14 season.

Opponents seemed confused by the new offense and Memphis was making them pay. Green seemed genuinely impressed.

"They run an unconventional offense. ... What they're doing is weird," Green told reporters after Golden State's home win over Memphis on Nov. 15, a little more than a month before the Grizzlies routed the Warriors by 51 points in Memphis. "In the NBA, most rotations and patterns are pretty similar. What they're doing is, like, I haven't seen it."

After a while, though, the novelty wore off. Opponents adjusted. Injuries mounted. Jackson sat out five games in March because of a sprained ankle. Morant has been in and out of the lineup all season, sitting out extended stretches because of a hip subluxation, sprained AC joint in his surgically repaired right shoulder and a hamstring strain that sidelined him for the final six games of Jenkins' tenure. Morant returned for Saturday's home loss to the Lakers, the first game after Jenkins' firing.

And as the sample size grew larger, other issues and side effects started to emerge. The new offense worked great against bad teams but not against good ones. Memphis' loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 8, when Morant finished with 16 points on 7-of-19 shooting, started a discouraging trend. Since that game, the Grizzlies have lost their past 11 games against teams that currently have winning records.

Perhaps most concerning was how Morant was functioning in the offense. Instead of freeing him up in transition and for moments of individual brilliance, the system was effectively taking the ball out of his hands. This season, Morant is averaging career lows in touches, average touch length and dribbles per touch this season. Morant's 22.4 points per game is his lowest scoring average since 2020-21, his second season, and his field goal percentage (.448) is the worst of his career.

That didn't sit well with him, and he voiced his frustrations publicly and privately, sources said. As the Grizzlies spiraled, losing six of eight after the All-Star break, pressure mounted to the point where one Western Conference general manager believed, until the firings, that the team would be forced to shop Morant this summer.

Jenkins tried to adjust and compromise. He started calling for more pick-and-roll sets. In March, Memphis ran 59.8 on-ball screens and handoffs per game, up significantly from the earlier months of the season.

On March 7, Morant capped a comeback road win over the injury-ravaged Dallas Mavericks by scoring 11 of his 31 points in the final 6:15. All five of his buckets down the stretch came off of pick-and-roll or isolation, the sort of dribble-centric plays the Grizzlies had gone away from for most of the season. Morant had exhibited his delight in the final minute by flexing in the paint after making a floater and dancing while pretending to play guitar after drilling a dagger 3-pointer, a stark contrast to his often dour mood this season.

"A little bit of Ja, the old Ja," Morant said postgame while describing those moments.

How often had Morant felt like that this season?

"Not at all," he said.

Had Memphis won more during this stretch, this could've gone down as a good adjustment. But the Grizzlies weren't winning much. They were regressing, offensively and defensively -- once the strength of the team. The Grizzlies rank 20th in defense since the All-Star break, giving up 117.1 points per 100 possessions. Memphis is 8-13 since the break, including a 6-7 record with Morant on the court.

The feeling within the Grizzlies' organization was that Jenkins had "lost the locker room," a predictable development after the summer reconstruction of his coaching staff. The internal perception was that players, most importantly Morant, had tuned out Jenkins.

"That team has lost all of [its] swagger," a rival Western Conference player told ESPN. Players started to bicker in huddles. A heated exchange unfolded on the bench during a March 25 win over the Utah Jazz, when Bane shoved forward Santi Aldama during an incident that quickly went viral.

"You could just tell no one was on the same page," one team source said.

STILL, THE GRIZZLIES seemed to be in a relatively good place. On the day they fired Jenkins, they were fifth in the Western Conference with nine games to play and Morant about to return from his hamstring injury.

Their likely first-round opponent, the Lakers, had also been scuffling, losing four of five games in March, and struggling against younger teams such as the Chicago Bulls and Orlando Magic.

Kleiman weighed all of his options and decided the urgency to see what this core group could do together outweighed the benefits of letting Morant come back from injury and hoping Jenkins could reconnect the team and get it back on track before the playoffs. The anticipation had been that Jenkins would be fired after a first-round playoff exit. Kleiman decided there was no benefit to waiting.

So he fired Jenkins, LaRoche and assistant Patrick St. Andrews, who'd joined the staff the previous season to also work on the offense. Iisalo was promoted to interim head coach and tasked with clarifying the vision offensively, which had become muddled in its attempt at radical simplicity.

The hope is a new voice will connect with and elevate a core that has stagnated since that epic series against the Warriors in 2022.

That the Grizzlies will be rewarded, just as the Cavaliers have this season under new coach Kenny Atkinson, for sticking with a core group they believe in and making the right adjustments around the margins and at the top.

Memphis is committed to extending Jackson and Aldama this summer, sources said. And Kleiman publicly denied trade rumors and affirmed the commitment to Morant in February.

But those decisions -- and leaning into a pick-and-roll-heavy offensive system again under Iisalo -- signal Memphis' commitment to Morant is much more than lip service. There are doubts throughout the league about whether Morant, whose superstar ascension has been interrupted by off-court issues and injuries, can be the face of a contending franchise.

"Does he sell tickets? Yes," the rival GM told ESPN. "Is he a top-25 player when healthy? Yes. Can he win multiple series as the best player? No. Not sure most years you can win even one. Plus he is always hurt."

Another question remains, and that one has no easy answer:

The Grizzlies are committed to this core, but is it good enough to contend for a title?

Three years ago there was little question -- or urgency -- about that. But time moves fast in the NBA. And another "reality check" is coming in Memphis.

ESPN Research's Matt Williams contributed to this report.

The Pittsburgh Pirates called up right-handed prospect Thomas Harrington to make his major league debut on Tuesday against the host Tampa Bay Rays.

Harrington, who will get the start versus the Rays, rated No. 73 among Baseball America's top 100 prospects (No. 78 by MLB Pipeline).

He recorded a 7-3 record with a 2.61 ERA and 0.96 WHIP in 22 combined appearances (21 starts) between Low-A Bradenton, Double-A Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis.

Harrington, 23, was selected by the Pirates with the 36th overall pick of the 2022 MLB June amateur draft from Campbell.

Also on Tuesday, the Pirates designated catcher Jason Delay for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster and optioned two-time All-Star right-hander David Bednar to Indianapolis.

Delay, 30, batted .231 with two homers and 35 RBIs in 134 career games with the Pirates.

Bednar, 30, is 0-2 with one save and a 27.00 ERA in three appearances this season.