Daily Archives: February 27, 2021

The New York Times

Across the United States, and the world, the coronavirus seems to be loosening its stranglehold. The deadly curve of cases, hospitalizations and deaths has yo-yoed before, but never has it plunged so steeply and so fast. Is this it, then? Is this the beginning of the end? After a year of being pummeled by grim statistics and scolded for wanting human contact, many Americans feel a long-promised deliverance is at hand. Americans will win against the virus and regain many aspects of their pre-pandemic lives, most scientists now believe. Of the 21 interviewed for this article, all were optimistic that the worst of the pandemic is past. This summer, they said, life may begin to seem normal again. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times But of course, theres always a but researchers are also worried that Americans, so close to the finish line, may once again underestimate the virus. So far, the two vaccines authorized in the United States are spectacularly effective, and after a slow start, the vaccination rollout is picking up momentum. A third vaccine is likely to be authorized shortly, adding to the nations supply. But it will be many weeks before vaccinations make a dent in the pandemic. And now the virus is shape-shifting faster than expected, evolving into variants that may partly sidestep the immune system. The latest variant was discovered in New York City only this week, and another worrisome version is spreading at a rapid pace through California. Scientists say a contagious variant first discovered in Britain will become the dominant form of the virus in the United States by the end of March. The road back to normalcy is potholed with unknowns: how well vaccines prevent further spread of the virus; whether emerging variants remain susceptible enough to the vaccines; and how quickly the world is immunized, so as to halt further evolution of the virus. But the greatest ambiguity is human behavior. Can Americans desperate for normalcy keep wearing masks and distancing themselves from family and friends? How much longer can communities keep businesses, offices and schools closed? COVID-19 deaths will most likely never rise quite as precipitously as in the past, and the worst may be behind us. But if Americans let down their guard too soon many states are already lifting restrictions and if the variants spread in the United States as they have elsewhere, another spike in cases may well arrive in the coming weeks. Scientists call it the fourth wave. The new variants mean were essentially facing a pandemic within a pandemic, said Adam Kucharski, a publich health expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The declines are real, but they disguise worrying trends. The United States has now recorded 500,000 deaths amid the pandemic, a terrible milestone. As of Wednesday morning, at least 28.3 million people have been infected. But the rate of new infections has tumbled by 35% over the past two weeks, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. Hospitalizations are down 31%, and deaths have fallen by 16%. Yet the numbers are still at the horrific highs of November, scientists noted. At least 3,210 people died of COVID-19 on Wednesday alone. And there is no guarantee that these rates will continue to decrease. Very, very high case numbers are not a good thing, even if the trend is downward, said Marc Lipsitch, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Taking the first hint of a downward trend as a reason to reopen is how you get to even higher numbers. In late November, for example, Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island limited social gatherings and some commercial activities in the state. Eight days later, cases began to decline. The trend reversed eight days after the states pause lifted on Dec. 20. The viruss latest retreat in Rhode Island and most other states, experts said, results from a combination of factors: growing numbers of people with immunity to the virus, either from having been infected or from vaccination; changes in behavior in response to the surges of a few weeks ago; and a dash of seasonality the effect of temperature and humidity on the survival of the virus. Parts of the country that experienced huge surges in infection, like Montana and Iowa, may be closer to herd immunity than other regions. But patchwork immunity alone cannot explain the declines throughout much of the world. The vaccines were first rolled out to residents of nursing homes and to the elderly, who are at highest risk of severe illness and death. That may explain some of the current decline in hospitalizations and deaths. But young people drive the spread of the virus, and most of them have not yet been inoculated. And the bulk of the worlds vaccine supply has been bought up by wealthy nations, which have amassed 1 billion more doses than needed to immunize their populations. Vaccination cannot explain why cases are dropping even in countries where not a single soul has been immunized, like Honduras, Kazakhstan or Libya. The biggest contributor to the sharp decline in infections is something more mundane, scientists say: behavioral change. Leaders in the United States and elsewhere stepped up community restrictions after the holiday peaks. But individual choices have also been important, said Lindsay Wiley, an expert in public health law and ethics at American University in Washington. People voluntarily change their behavior as they see their local hospital get hit hard, as they hear about outbreaks in their area, she said. If thats the reason that things are improving, then thats something that can reverse pretty quickly, too. The downward curve of infections with the original coronavirus disguises an exponential rise in infections with B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain, according to many researchers. We really are seeing two epidemic curves, said Ashleigh Tuite, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Toronto. The B.1.1.7 variant is thought to be more contagious and more deadly, and it is expected to become the predominant form of the virus in the United States by late March. The number of cases with the variant in the United States has risen from 76 in 12 states as of Jan. 13 to more than 1,800 in 45 states now. Actual infections may be much higher because of inadequate surveillance efforts in the United States. Buoyed by the shrinking rates over all, however, governors are lifting restrictions across the United States and are under enormous pressure to reopen completely. Should that occur, B.1.1.7 and the other variants are likely to explode. Everybody is tired, and everybody wants things to open up again, Tuite said. Bending to political pressure right now, when things are really headed in the right direction, is going to end up costing us in the long term. Another wave may be coming, but it can be minimized. Looking ahead to late March or April, the majority of scientists interviewed by The Times predicted a fourth wave of infections. But they stressed that it is not an inevitable surge, if government officials and individuals maintain precautions for a few more weeks. A minority of experts were more sanguine, saying they expected powerful vaccines and an expanding rollout to stop the virus. And a few took the middle road. Were at that crossroads, where it could go well or it could go badly, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The vaccines have proved to be more effective than anyone could have hoped, so far preventing serious illness and death in nearly all recipients. At present, about 1.4 million Americans are vaccinated each day. More than 45 million Americans have received at least one dose. A team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle tried to calculate the number of vaccinations required per day to avoid a fourth wave. In a model completed before the variants surfaced, the scientists estimated that vaccinating just 1 million Americans a day would limit the magnitude of the fourth wave. But the new variants completely changed that, said Dr. Joshua Schiffer, an infectious disease specialist who led the study. Its just very challenging scientifically the ground is shifting very, very quickly. Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, described herself as a little more optimistic than many other researchers. We would be silly to undersell the vaccines, she said, noting that they are effective against the fast-spreading B.1.1.7 variant. But Dean worried about the forms of the virus detected in South Africa and Brazil that seem less vulnerable to the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. (On Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson reported that its vaccine was relatively effective against the variant found in South Africa.) About 50 infections with those two variants have been identified in the United States, but that could change. Because of the variants, scientists do not know how many people who were infected and had recovered are now vulnerable to reinfection. South Africa and Brazil have reported reinfections with the new variants among people who had recovered from infections with the original version of the virus. That makes it a lot harder to say, If we were to get to this level of vaccinations, wed probably be OK, said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. Yet the biggest unknown is human behavior, experts said. The sharp drop in cases now may lead to complacency about masks and distancing, and to a wholesale lifting of restrictions on indoor dining, sporting events and more. Or not. The single biggest lesson Ive learned during the pandemic is that epidemiological modeling struggles with prediction, because so much of it depends on human behavioral factors, said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Taking into account the counterbalancing rises in both vaccinations and variants, along with the high likelihood that people will stop taking precautions, a fourth wave is highly likely this spring, the majority of experts told The Times. Kristian Andersen, a virus expert at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, said he was confident that the number of cases will continue to decline, then plateau in about a month. After mid-March, the curve in new cases will swing upward again. In early to mid-April, were going to start seeing hospitalizations go up, he said. Its just a question of how much. Summer will feel like summer again, sort of. Now the good news. Despite the uncertainties, the experts predict that the last surge will subside in the United States sometime in the early summer. If the Biden administration can keep its promise to immunize every American adult by the end of the summer, the variants should be no match for the vaccines. Combine vaccination with natural immunity and the human tendency to head outdoors as weather warms, and it may not be exactly herd immunity, but maybe its sufficient to prevent any large outbreaks, said Youyang Gu, an independent data scientist, who created some of the most prescient models of the pandemic. Infections will continue to drop. More important, hospitalizations and deaths will fall to negligible levels enough, hopefully, to reopen the country. Sometimes people lose vision of the fact that vaccines prevent hospitalization and death, which is really actually what most people care about, said Stefan Baral, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Even as the virus begins its swoon, people may still need to wear masks in public places and maintain social distance, because a significant percent of the population including children will not be immunized. Assuming that we keep a close eye on things in the summer and dont go crazy, I think that we could look forward to a summer that is looking more normal, but hopefully in a way that is more carefully monitored than last summer, said Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Imagine: Groups of vaccinated people will be able to get together for barbecues and play dates, without fear of infecting one another. Beaches, parks and playgrounds will be full of mask-free people. Indoor dining will return, along with movie theaters, bowling alleys and shopping malls although they may still require masks. The virus will still be circulating, but the extent will depend in part on how well vaccines prevent not just illness and death, but also transmission. The data on whether vaccines stop the spread of the disease are encouraging, but immunization is unlikely to block transmission entirely. Its not zero and its not 100 exactly where that number is will be important, said Shweta Bansal, an infectious disease modeler at Georgetown University. It needs to be pretty darn high for us to be able to get away with vaccinating anything below 100% of the population, so thats definitely something were watching. Over the long term say, a year from now, when all the adults and children in the United States who want a vaccine have received them will this virus finally be behind us? Every expert interviewed by The Times said no. Even after the vast majority of the American population has been immunized, the virus will continue to pop up in clusters, taking advantage of pockets of vulnerability. Years from now, the coronavirus may be an annoyance, circulating at low levels, causing modest colds. Many scientists said their greatest worry post-pandemic was that new variants may turn out to be significantly less susceptible to the vaccines. Billions of people worldwide will remain unprotected, and each infection gives the virus new opportunities to mutate. We wont have useless vaccines. We might have slightly less good vaccines than we have at the moment, said Andrew Read, an evolutionary microbiologist at Penn State University. Thats not the end of the world, because we have really good vaccines right now. For now, every one of us can help by continuing to be careful for just a few more months, until the curve permanently flattens. Just hang in there a little bit longer, Tuite said. Theres a lot of optimism and hope, but I think we need to be prepared for the fact that the next several months are likely to continue to be difficult. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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Chris Webber could very well be the most gifted power forward to ever play the position, a revolutionary with his myriad gifts and a sign the NBA was changing when he arrived in the mid-1990s.

But his fingerprints havent been awarded with a Hall of Fame induction, at least not yet. Although best known for his stint in Sacramento, turning the Kings into contenders in the early 2000s, he took Golden State and Washington to the playoffs in his early years followed by productive stints in Philadelphia and Detroit.

A five-time All-Star, Webber averaged 20.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists from 1993-2008. The Hall of Fame class of 2020 featured Webbers contemporaries and it wouldve almost been perfect to see him go in with the late Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett.

Due to the pandemic, that class hasnt officially been enshrined and the Hall is planning two separate ceremonies for this calendar year. Because of the secretive nature of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, nobody can pinpoint why Webber hasnt gotten the nod yet.

Yes it has bothered me but its not something thats made me bitter or something you think about all the time, Webber told Yahoo Sports. The validation of the best players that have ever played in the world has been enough for me. Every year around this time, you get that call, right after that call you get legends calling you. You get to reminiscing with them about disappointments in their lives.

Webber didnt win an NBA title, coming close in 2002 with the Kings in a controversial series against the Bryant and Shaquille ONeal-led Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

Chris Webber is still waiting for the call from the Basketball Hall of Fame. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

The seven-game classic was perhaps marred in Game 6, where the Lakers went on a parade to the free-throw line that helped them tie the series at three, and won an overtime Game 7 on the road.

Webber had a strong case for MVP in 2001, and before his serious knee injury in the 2003 playoffs against Dallas, he carried the franchise with averages of 24.1 points, 10.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 1.6 blocks and 1.5 steals in a five-year stretch.

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He helped turn the power forward position into a versatile one, ushering in a golden era highlighted by Duncan, Garnett and Rasheed Wallace, among others.

KG and Sheed, we all grew up in the same era. I was just older, Webber said. I admired their games too. I stole from everybody that came before me. Barkley, Karl Malone, Derrick Coleman, Magic Johnson, big guys who could do more.

I knew I was part of the generation that was changing the paradigm. We grew up on Magic. Hes 6-9 and now in practice our coaches are letting us dribble. I knew as a big man being able to shoot threes and do other things, not a lot [of bigs] were doing it. I knew I could do some things other people my size couldnt do and I wanted to play different positions. Nellie [Don Nelson] validated that my first year by trying to make me a point forward. I knew I had that gift.

Webbers gifts first came to the national stage at the University of Michigan with the legendary Fab Five. Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson were cultural icons on the way to national title games as freshmen and sophomores in 1992 and 1993.

They wore baggy shorts, black socks and Nikes that became classics along with ruffling the establishment that didnt like the Five being rebels. Webber was the headliner, being part of the college select team that practiced against the 1992 Dream Team and becoming the first pick in the 1993 NBA draft.

While Webber waits for the call, though, hes joined with JW Asset Management to launch a $100 million private equity cannabis fund that will invest in companies led by minority entrepreneurs pursuing careers in the cannabis sector.

Chris Webber has joined with JW Asset Management to launch a $100 million private equity cannabis fund. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

Since federal and state laws have eased up on marijuana, business has boomed but Black people have largely been shut out. Webber hopes to change that.

First its about business and access to individuals who are qualified, Webber said. And giving access to a community thats so unfairly targeted by racist laws. Hopefully, theres a freedom with that. Ive seen families devastated by a plant that can cause so much healing and restoration. And now that others are trying to take advantage of it.

Its obvious that in America this needs to be done. If we do it right, my friends and other business leaders will do it in their fields of expertise. This isnt welfare, we arent giving people anything. These are qualified people that just get picked over because of the color of their skin, or their gender.

Webber has been more active speaking about civic issues. As a commentator for TNT, he made a passioned plea for change in the Orlando bubble when the NBA players boycotted a day of playoff games following a police-sanctioned shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Its not a stretch to say Webbers career has come full circle, and its hard to see a Hall of Fame without a player who helped push the game forward.

For me its not about me, its about my first coach and my father making me play. Its honoring all those people whove got you there, Webber said. Its about that person but it really isnt. Its everyone else getting rewarded. When does everyone else get the reward? The coaches, this and that, we won, we put into him. And they did that through my career but hopefully Ill get to thank them in front of the greatest of the world. Hopefully, Ill get to honor those that helped me get that honor, if that does happen.

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While Chris Webber waits for the Hall of Fame, he's helping minorities in the cannabis industry - Yahoo Sports

Jared Goff led the Los Angeles Rams to a Super Bowl in 2019.

Now, two years later, the former No. 1 overall pick is out of Los Angeles. Coach Sean McVay is moving on but hes not doing so without any of the blame.

When you look back at the four years that we did have together, theres a lot of times you can smile on, McVay said, via the NFL Network. And I would say theres a lot of things that when I self-reflect, I certainly wish I was better for him in some instances Im not going to run away from the things that I could have been better for him as a leader and as a coach."

Goff and two future first round draft picks were traded to the Detroit Lions in exchange for Matthew Stafford last month.

Though the team had signed him to a massive extension after their Super Bowl appearance, Goff declined ever since both statistically and in his standing with the team. McVay and the Rams even decided to start backup John Wolford in their playoff game last season, even though Goff said he was good to go after minor thumb surgery.

By the time the trade went down, Goff could tell he wasnt wanted in Los Angeles anymore.

I'm just excited to be somewhere that I know wants me and appreciates me, he said.

While its easy to blame the quarterback for offensive struggles, McVay said that doing so exclusively in this case is an unfair narrative.

A lot of it, he said, falls on him.

Im not going to make any excuses about it, but theres a lot of things, even some of the decision making in games, he said, via the Los Angeles Times. Are you consistently putting him in the right positions to be successful?

And so, as a coach, as a leader, your job is to try to make situations and people youre around better, and there are certainly some moments that I know I could have done better really for our team and for Jared in particular.

Quarterback Jared Goff of the Los Angeles Rams with head coach Sean McVay on Saturday, August 22, 2020. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/Getty Images)

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Sean McVay takes partial blame Jared Goff's decline with Rams: 'I could have done better' - Yahoo Sports

Flight-hopping Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was among those up in arms over Disneys firing of The Mandalorian co-star Gina Carano, who was cut loose from the Star Wars spinoff series earlier this month following uproar over several offensive social media posts including one in which she likened blowback against conservatives to being a Jewish person during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

Cruz defended Carano in a Twitter post on Feb. 11, but in doing so the purported Star Wars fan also felt the need to take shots at the franchises other notable female leads.

Texan Gina Carano broke barriers in the Star Wars universe: not a princess, not a victim, not some emotionally tortured Jedi, wrote Cruz. She played a woman who kicked ass & who girls looked up to. She was instrumental in making Star Wars fun again. Of course Disney canceled her.

The emotionally tortured Jedi line was a not-so-subtle shot fired at Daisy Ridley's Rey, the heroine of the latest Star Wars trilogy sequel who overcame the trauma of being orphaned after the murder of her parents. The princess and victim descriptions, meanwhile, were likely references to Carrie Fishers princess-turned-Gen. Leia Organa and Natalie Portmans Padm Amidala.

In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment Tuesday promoting her new sci-fi thriller Chaos Walking, Ridley says she had not heard Cruzs attempted Rey diss, but responded to it on the spot, referencing Cruzs heavily criticized trip to Cancn last week while his state experienced a historic, deadly freeze and devastating power outages. (The politician subsequently blamed the impromptu vacation on his daughters in a misleading statement claiming he was only leaving for a day. He later admitted it was a blunder and apologized in a TV interview.)

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I did not know, and I am very happy to be an emotionally tortured Jedi, the actress says, who doesnt leave their state when its having a terrible time.

Ouch.

Our thoughts to Cruz as he recovers from the wrath of an emotionally tortured Jedi.

Chaos Walking opens March 5.

Video produced by Jen Kucsak and edited by John Santo

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Daisy Ridley claps back at Ted Cruz's Rey diss: 'I am very happy to be an emotionally tortured Jedi who doesn't leave their state' - Yahoo...

When Ed Hornick first came down with COVID-19 symptoms last January, he assumed that one day he'd feel better. But a year later, like millions of others who contracted the virus, he's still sick. This torturous cycle of debilitating brain fog, fatigue and muscle pain which Hornick, a senior editor at Yahoo News, recently wrote about has been referred to by mostly informal names thus far, such as "long COVID."

But during a press conference Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, finally referred to it by an official name: PASC. "Many of you are now aware of what had long been called 'long COVID' but actually, what that really is is post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, which were now referring to as 'PASC,'" Fauci said.

With some studies showing that as many as one-third of patients with COVID-19 may experience lingering symptoms, the National Institutes of Health announced this week that it is launching an analysis to figure out what is causing the constellation of symptoms. "Its very difficult to treat something when you dont know what the target of the treatment is," Fauci said during the press conference. "And thats the reason why it's extremely important to take a look at these individuals, not only the scope of this and not only, you know, the depth and breadth of the symptoms, but also to try and have some correlate that actually is the pathophysiological correlate."

Dr. Bradley Sanville, a pulmonologist at UC Davis who treats PASC patients at the facility's Post-COVID Clinic, says Fauci's announcement is a significant development. "The name is important. I think the colloquial name of 'long haulers' is fine and helps patients identify with others," Sanville tells Yahoo Life. "But from a medical standpoint, naming is important because it gives it a little bit of veracity that it otherwise wouldn't have."

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Dr. Anthony Fauci referred to what's been called "long COVID" by an official name: PASC. (Getty Images)

Sanville says that the inclusion of "sequelae" which technically means "aftereffect of a disease" helps capture the large variation of symptoms that long-haulers experience. "It's different than using 'disease'; disease is something that is much more discreet and we know has a particular pathophysiology behind it," says Sanville. "Whereas a syndrome, or sequelae, is something that's associated with well, in this case, SARS-CoV-2 virus. But we don't know exactly what's causing it, and it's probably a collection of a couple of different things happening."

He's hopeful that this name will add to the legitimacy of this condition, which he currently sees at a rate of six new patients a week. "Giving it a name that physicians and nurses understand helps it kind of give some reality too," he says. "I had a patient the other day who complained that the doctor she had seen had just written her off as being neurotic. So not that I have any magic answers necessarily for all these patients but it's so prevalent that it seems unlikely that ... it's just in people's brains."

Equally appreciative of the new name is Dr. Ruwanthi Titano, a cardiology specialist at Mount Sinai who has treated more than 260 patients with cardiac symptoms of PASC. "I think this is an appropriate name showing that it's after the acute illness, there are these long-term sequelae that we're really seeing coming out of the woodwork," she says. Titano is particularly happy to hear about NIH's plans to study the condition, for which symptoms range from shortness of breath and heart palpitations to hair loss and numbness.

"I think the more [patients] we see, the more comfortable we are at recognizing the syndrome but what to actually do with it is still up in the air," says Titano. "There is a general approach I take, but then I have to get very individualized for each patient ... and so we're adapting all the time. This is a critical area where I think having NIH-level help and funding is really important to collect data, make registries and then move forward and say, 'We have these unanswered clinical questions.'"

For people like Hornick, the acknowledgment and naming are long overdue. "It's incredibly comforting to know that what I've been going through for the past 10 months has an official name and that significant research and resources are being dedicated to tackling it," says Hornick. "Hopefully, scientists will be able to get to the bottom of not just PASC, but also afflictions like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which still remain a mystery to doctors."

Titano feels optimistic that they will. "l am very hopeful," she says. "I think because, you know, the alternative is really bleak and, because based on my experience, I have seen a lot of patients improve. It has been very incremental and gradual ... but I have seen patients improve, and I think we will continue seeing that as we learn more and more."

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The most enduring image from the USA womens gymnastics 2012 Olympic team wasnt of gold-medal-celebrating athletes or a stuck landing at the end of a championship routine.

It was one of self-doubt and disappointment.

It came courtesy of McKayla Maroney, undeniably the worlds best vaulter at the time, who nonetheless was denied a gold medal after she shockingly fell on her second attempt. Had she landed square, she would have won easily. She didnt and had to settle for silver.

On the medal podium, Maroney briefly pouted her lips. Cameras snapped and the image was instantly hailed as her not impressed face. It was mimicked, replicated and repeated everywhere. Maroney even busted it out when visiting President Obama at the White House.

I was sad, I was upset and I was not impressed, Maroney said years later. What was a joke to many wasnt to her though. She said she didnt sleep for nearly a week.

It was the least of her troubles, the shallowest of her horrors from those Olympics.

Throughout Maroneys time in London, the then-17-year-old was systematically raped and violated by team doctor Larry Nassar. Each of her four teammates Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Jordyn Wieber and Kyla Ross has publicly revealed they were victimized as well. It all happened under the watch of a group of adults that keeps being charged with its own despicable crimes.

That included the 2012 teams head coach, John Geddert, who doubled as a friend of Nassars from back in Lansing, Michigan. It was at the gym Geddert owned and operated, Twistars, where Nassar would meet and molest hundreds of girls.

Geddert, himself, was charged Thursday with 24 criminal counts, including two involving his own sexual assault of a girl aged 13-16. There was also one for lying to police during questioning about Nassar and 20 counts related to abusive coaching. Rather than face the accusations, he ran from them, driving to a highway rest stop and killing himself.

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U.S. gymnast Jordyn Wieber is consoled by head coach John Geddert after her performance during the artistic gymnastics women's floor exercise final at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. (AP)

Then there was USA Gymnastics president Steve Perry, who in 2018 was indicted by a Texas grand jury for tampering with evidence related to the Nassar investigation. He is still awaiting trial.

Other training and competition settings included Indianapolis-based coach Marvin Sharp, who in 2015 killed himself inside his jail cell after being charged with molesting a 15-year-old girl.

And, of course, there was Nassar, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting 10 victims and had nearly 200 speak at a sentencing hearing. For years he wasnt just the national team doctor, but an active presence on USAG advisory boards that wrote training and safety procedures. The 57-year-old is currently in a federal prison in Florida on separate child pornography charges.

I frequently had to travel [without my parents] under the supervision of USA Gymnastics, Raisman stated on Thursday following Gedderts indictment and then suicide. The responsible adults included John Geddert, Marvin Sharp, Steve Penny and Larry Nassar.

Others, including team coordinator Martha Karolyi, were clearly too focused on winning to question the wisdom of allowing a grown man such as Nassar unfettered access to the training center dorms or hotel rooms of teenage girls.

The United States would capture five medals over the nine-day gymnastics competition at those London Games, including three golds. The visions of their smiling and cheering (and even not impressed) faces would launch fame, commercial opportunities and another generation of young, enthralled girls who aspired to be just like them.

It looked beautiful. It was actually a nightmare and one that, with each increasing arrest and allegation, becomes even more unfathomable to comprehend. Not just how it happened, but how the athletes accomplished what they did in spite of it all.

Maroneys Olympic dream, for example, began when she was handed a sleeping pill by Nassar on the flight to London. She recalls awakening with Nassar in his hotel room where he was giving her a treatment.

I thought I was going to die, she said in a statement at Nassars 2018 sentencing hearing.

He went on to repeatedly rape her, perhaps daily, throughout the Games.

The scope and breadth of the depravity is breathtaking. Or it should be. The Nassar scandal became so big, and so brutal, that the stories tended to blend together, overwhelming the true sense of the evil and awfulness involved.

Each girl was a victim though. Each act was a crime. Each moment a life-altering act. The volume of the incidents shouldnt diminish their viciousness.

Everything those Olympians went through, from the climb up the ultra-competitive ladder of USA Gymnastics, to the Olympics itself, to even the disappointments that came during competition, lives forever under that cloud.

They were surrounded by alleged pedophiles, who constructed a training mentality and a culture of compliance that made the athletes extremely vulnerable to abuse.

Say nothing. Question nothing. Dare never to complain. America, they were often reminded, has a dozen more elite gymnasts just like you who will gladly take your place and maintain the focus needed to win gold.

There is no union to advocate for them. No agents with the power to speak up. The system can replace them too easily.

Everything worked against them, even Olympic rules, which allow for just two gymnasts from a single country to compete for the coveted All-Around gold often chosen at the discretion of the coaches.

In 2011, Wieber won the women's world championship. At the Olympics a year later, dealing with a shin injury "treated" by Nassar, she missed qualifying for the all-around final by one-tenth of a point.

It is a sport where the smallest of mistakes means everything. That reality impacts everything.

Even parents were held at bay. They were banned from lengthy, cut-throat training camps at the Karolyi Ranch in Texas. And during the Olympics, USA Gymnastics, citing the need for focus, limited parental contact to just a few phone calls and texts, plus two brief face-to-face pre-scheduled sessions.

Maroney, in 2018, said that the fact "my mom and dad were unable to observe what Nassar was doing ... imposed a terrible and undeserved burden of guilt on my loving family." In 2019, her father, Mike, died while trying to detox from opioids.

It doesn't take much to connect the dots.

The need for control was everything to USA Gymnastics, though. Geddert, who fashioned himself as a tough guy coach but was really just a manipulative bully to little girls, was always quick to brag about his demanding ways. He basked in his reputation.

What kind of coaching was this though?

Does Maroney uncharacteristically fall on that second vault, blowing what was presumed to be a shoo-in gold, if she wasnt suffering through a string of rapes by a doctor she had been brainwashed into trusting?

And what of Wieber? She was the best in the world at 15, but suffered a stress fracture in her shin, in part, she later theorized, because of overtraining by Geddert.

Then, rather than receive honest medical treatment, she received Larry Nassar.

U.S. gymnasts, left to right, Jordyn Wieber, Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Kyla Ross raise their hands after winning the team gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. (AP)

The doctor that was our abuser," Wieber said at Nassar's sentencing. "The doctor that is a child molester.

The abuse went beyond just sexual and included mental and emotional trauma. Wiebers failure to qualify for the all-around competition left her devastated. She openly cried after and couldnt face fans or the media.

She hasnt said a word, Geddert said of Wieber directly after the qualifying failure. She doesnt talk. Shell get into her little shell.

Wiebers mother, Rita, unable to see her then-16-year-old after the most heartbreaking day of her career, could only get her briefly on the phone I told her, Life will go on, Rita said at the time. We always raised her to know that we support her in all of life, not just gymnastics.

USA Gymnastics meanwhile shrugged and sent her in for more "treatment" from Nassar. There was the coveted team gold to win two days later, after all. The U.S. would clinch it when, incredibly, Wieber and Maroney delivered near flawless vaults.

That spectacular triumph was hailed as proof the machine of American gymnastics worked.

Redemption, Geddert said that day of Wieber. Thats the type of kid she is."

She is. No matter what John Geddert and USA Gymnastics did to try to break her.

Now I question everything about that injury and the medical treatment I received, Wieber said. Was Larry even doing anything to help my pain? Was I getting proper medical care, or was he only focused on which of us he was going to prey on next?

With a real doctor, could Wieber have won all-around gold? Could she have, scores and standings aside, performed her best in the competition she spent her life training and sacrificing and dreaming to reach?

And what if anyone stopped and thought of McKayla Maroney, not merely her ability to vault?

If Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee had paid attention to any of the red flags in Larry Nassars behavior, I never would have met him, Maroney stated. I never would have been treated by him, and I never would have been abused by him."

No one was paying attention, though. Certainly not enough. Perhaps because many of the people charged with identifying those red flags had red flags of their own. The win-at-all-costs mentality, the disregard for abuse of any kind ... it was done by what we increasingly know were abusers themselves.

The USA gymnasts didnt just have to defeat the Russians and Romanians.

It had to defeat USA Gymnastics itself.

At the end of an Olympics that appeared, per the medal count, to be a glorious success, the team branded itself with a name. Some media had been calling them The Fab Five, but that didnt work.

I guess it was taken by some basketball team or something, said Maroney, who wasnt alive when, indeed, the University of Michigan made the term famous in the early 1990s.

So they dubbed themselves "The Fierce Five instead.

Fierce, Maroney proudly explained back then. Thats what we are.

More and more each day.

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Salesforce (CRM) is becoming a "success from anywhere, success from everywhere" company during the unprecedented adoption of digital and changing nature of work.

"I would say that we are in a world still that we're creating in the future. We know the past is behind us, and the future is definitely ahead, and it's going to be a new work environment," Benioff told Yahoo Finance on Thursday after the software giant reported record quarterly and full-year results.

To be sure, a new work environment doesn't mean having just one location. Earlier this month, Salesforce's Chief People Officer Brent Hyder wrote that the "workspace is no longer limited to a desk" in the company's office towers and that the "9-to-5 workday is dead."

Most Salesforce employees opt for a "flex" way of working in which they spend 1-3 days in an office for team collaboration or customer meetings and presentations. Benioff also works from the office and home.

"I'm not just going to be in my home. In fact, in the last month, I've actually been in Singapore. I've been with my employees there. Yesterday, I was actually at the top of Salesforce Tower here in San Francisco. And I plan to get back into the work environment and into my office and back with my customers. But I also know I'll probably be working at home as well. I've developed a lot of new skills," he added.

Salesforce has seen its business accelerate during the coronavirus pandemic that ushered in an all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. On Thursday, the software-as-a-service giant reported stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter results. Earnings per share came in at $1.04, outpacing estimates for 75 cents. Revenue for the quarter came in at $5.82 billion ahead of forecasts of $5.68 billion.

Salesforce delivered full-year fiscal 2021 revenue of $21.25 billion, up 24% year-over-year, and a new record. The customer resource management (CRM) provider expects full-year fiscal 2022 revenue to be in a range of $25.65 to $25.75 billion. Shares of Salesforce fell 4% on Friday on the slower pace of growth.

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"We're quite confident in delivering more than $25.5 billion in revenue. The reason why, of course, is we were operating off a deferred revenue model, that is you know all the contracts that we signed this year we haven't recognized the revenue until we're actually delivering the service, and so that flows very nicely into this year, and also the years to come," Benioff told Yahoo Finance. He previously shared that Salesforce's long-term revenue target for fiscal 2026 is $50 billion, double what the company is doing now.

Photo by: zz/STRF/STAR MAX/IPx 2020 12/15/20 Businesses and industry in Manhattan, New York City on December 15, 2020 during the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. While many of the larger corporations have managed to navigate the financial storm caused by the pandemic, other retailers have struggled to stay in business. Here, The Salesforce Tower offices in Midtown. (NYC)

When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, resulting in lockdowns and remote work, Salesforce had to tear up its old business plan and adapt.

"We devised a whole new business operating model for how we run Salesforce and how we would succeed from anywhere. We called that our 'pandemic operating model,'" Benioff told analysts on the earnings call, which was hosted outside in San Francisco with the leadership team socially-distanced.

Benioff noted that the company has become "significantly more strategic and more relevant to our customers than probably any time before." The company has also deployed new products such as Work.com to help companies and organizations reopen safely and Vaccine Cloud to aid in vaccination logistics.

"This has been a year where we're all fighting the pandemic, and that is a huge part of what we're working on every single day," Benioff said.

Benioff said the new work environment that's emerged is one of "success from everywhere, success from anywhere," with the need to work, sell, market, and service from anywhere.

Benioff told analysts that he's "been surprised" by how many sales calls they've been able to make. He added that if he could "rewind history over the last 22 years," he would have "enforced a much more significant digital discipline" from its sales organization.

In a world where in-person events, like its 170,000-person Dreamforce, go virtual, Benioff said the digital capability allows them to build a pipeline and direct access and deliver highly-customized selling at a velocity that wasn't previously thought possible.

"I think that when we look back at all of the time and energy we spent physically getting on airplanes, getting in cars, going to people's offices, having a breakfast or a lunch or a dinner, waiting to try to get up and make a C-level sales call, when you look today at the level of access that you have in organizations to conduct B2B sales, I mean, it's all the capability when you're digitally enabled, you can go anywhere just much, much faster," Benioff said.

Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.

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Salesforce becomes a 'success from anywhere' company with record year - Yahoo Finance

Tiger Woods has triumphed over the greatest challenges possible on a golf course. But he has never faced a test like the one thats before him now.

Woods suffered severe injuries to his legs in a one-car rollover on a Los Angeles area street Tuesday morning. He was driving on a winding residential road when his SUV hit a sign, a curb, crossed over two lanes of oncoming traffic, traveled down into a gully and ended up drivers-side down. The fact that Woods survived that initial impact was the first good sign.

Woods was conscious when first responders arrived on the scene, and awake and responsive, according to his team, late Tuesday evening. Between those times, though, he underwent hours of extensive surgery, the first steps in what will be a long and arduous recovery.

Two questions face Woods, one immediate and crucial, the other long-term and aspirational. First, can Woods have a normal life, with typical mobility and freedom from pain? Second, can one of the worlds best-known athletes ever return to competitive golf?

Yahoo Sports spoke to several surgeons with extensive experience in treating injuries similar to those Woods suffered. Without having reviewed Woods specific case file and with the caveat that there may be undisclosed elements of Woods case that could impact any prognosis all agreed that a return to a normal life is highly likely, and a return to elite-level golf isnt out of the question.

Tiger has a very, very, very long road to recovery ahead, said Dr. Kirk Campbell, an orthopedic surgeon at NYU Langone Health, and based on the information we have, returning to being an elite golfer would be very challenging. But I would not root against him.

A vehicle rests on its side after a rollover accident involving golfer Tiger Woods along a road in the Rancho Palos Verdes section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. Woods suffered leg injuries in the one-car accident and was undergoing surgery, authorities and his manager said. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

The simple fact that Woods is in treatment at all, given the way his SUV left the road and came to rest, is good news.

Any time there is a rollover accident where the car gets off four wheels, you can die, said Dr. Brian Polsky, an orthopedic surgeon at the Centers for Advanced Orthopedics in Washington, D.C. The trauma involved in that is very unpredictable, even with seatbelts and airbags. From that standpoint alone, hes fortunate.

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Late Tuesday evening, Woods team released a statement documenting the extent of his injuries. Dr. Anish Mahajan, CMO and interim CEO at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, indicated that Woods suffered significant orthopaedic injuries to his right lower extremity. In detail, those known injuries and treatments included:

Comminuted open fractures on both the tibia and fibula. Comminuted means Woods bones broke into more than two pieces. Open means the bones broke through the skin. The bone saw the outside world, which is very bad, Polsky said. That means theres a significant increase of infection.

Insertion of a rod to stabilize the tibia. Doctors inserted an intramedullary nail in Woods tibia, running it from his knee toward his ankle. The nail is 12 to 16 inches long, depending on the length of the patients tibia, and will remain in place. This is a standard procedure in cases of this type, and long bones typically heal well.

Insertion of screws and pins to stabilize the foot and ankle. This may be the bigger issue, said Dr. James Gladstone, chief of sports medicine at The Mount Sinai Health System in New York. If its a simple ankle fracture, those can get fixed, and people do very well. If its complex or severe, the risk is that the ankle gets stiff during the course of the healing process.

Surgical release of the covering of muscles of the leg. Any muscle has a covering over it like skin, Gladstone said. If youve had trauma, the muscle swells, and you may have to do a fasciotomy, where you cut that covering to keep the muscle from being strangled. Fasciotomies often require the wound to be left open in order to let the muscle subside, which in turn increases the risk of infection.

All of these procedures will require a minimum of several days in the hospital, and possibly much more once the trauma team sees how Woods responds to initial treatment. Antibiotics will be a necessity, and likely additional surgical treatments.

Open fractures can require multiple debridements, which is a fancy word for cleanups," Polsky said. Thats not uncommon. He could potentially require additional procedures for skin coverages, skin grafts and muscle grafts, depending on how bad it is.

Then Woods will leave the hospital, and the real work will begin.

This wont be the first rehab session for Woods or the second, third, fourth or fifth. Woods has undergone multiple surgical procedures all over his body, most recently his fifth back surgery just before last Christmas. Each time, Woods rebounded, sometimes slowly, sometimes triumphantly.

Unfortunately, its very possible that he may not physically be back to 100 percent, ever, Polsky said. But the person youre dealing with, someone of that athletic level, that amount of mental strength, that focus he has, definitely adds to the potential of him returning.

The mental aspect of Woods recovery will be a crucial one, but given his well-established tenacity, that aspect of his treatment isnt as much of a concern. Take it from the people whove seen that up close: the players he has competed against, and beaten, for the past two decades.

We all know he's a strong cookie physically, mentally, Tony Finau said Tuesday while practicing for the WGC-Workday Classic in Florida, so if someone's going to get through this, he will, and be back for the better, I'm sure.

Thats a hopeful diagnosis, not a medical one. Before Woods walks up another fairway, hell need to walk out his front door. That alone will require months of physical therapy.

I would imagine that when all is said and done, hes in very good hands, so he has a very good chance of having a basically normal life, Polsky said, being able to walk, be a father, maybe even to some extent be athletic, depending on recovery.

What about his day job? Thats another matter entirely.

Tiger Woods was at the Genesis Invitational golf tournament Sunday, but not as a player. A recent back surgery kept him from playing. (AP)

Golf fans with an eye toward history have noted the similarities between Woods accident and that of Ben Hogan, who lived through a devastating wreck in 1949, suffering a fractured pelvis, blood clots and a range of other injuries. Hogan recovered and went on to win six more majors. Could Woods enjoy a similar resurgence?

Again, thats probably more optimistic than realistic. Woods, 45, is 12 years older than Hogan was at the time of his accident. Even before Tuesday, Woods career was on a slow decline. Since his landmark Masters win in 2019, he has missed the cut in three majors and hasnt cracked the top 20 in any of the others. Hes slipped out of the world top 50 for the first time since 2018. On Sunday at the Genesis Invitational in which he did not play because of his back he was tentative, at best, about his prospects for the Masters. Now? Who knows?

Thats the $10 million question, Polsky said. There are fairly simple compound fractures that are open that are treated effectively with one procedure, and that individual can return to whatever their pre-injury status was. He cites the example of one of his patients, an Olympic athlete who suffered a similar open compound fracture and later returned to the Olympics.

Campbell pointed to Alex Smith, the Washington Football Team quarterback who suffered a similar injury to Woods broken tibia and fibula, along with nerve damage but still returned to the field two seasons later and kept Washington in the playoff hunt.

It all depends on concomitant [associated] injuries, Campbell said. Right now we dont know the details of his foot and ankle injury. And were not even speaking about his lower back. Hes still rehabbing from the recent surgery on that.

Worth noting: Woods team focused on trauma to the right leg, although initial reports indicated that he had broken bones in both legs. Whether that means his left leg was not as severely damaged, or whether Woods team is keeping that information private, remains unknown. But if the primary injury is to Woods right leg, that carries some small glimmer of hope for his golf game.

For a right-handed golfer, a lot of the power and torque goes through the left leg at the hip, the knee, the ankle, Polsky said. If the right leg got to 90 percent, he probably could be playing potentially competitive golf. If the worst of [the trauma] was to the right leg, thats mildly positive.

Assuming Woods recovers at a projected rate, he wont be able to return to a golf course for months. Given that his focus now is on winning majors, its likely hell miss the entire 2021 major season, which runs from mid-April to mid-July. That could mean we wont see Woods tee it up in any tournament until 2022.

It can really cover the spectrum, Gladstone said. It can be he returns without any problem, or he cant return at all. Without knowing more about his specific injury and how hes responding, we just dont know yet.

We all know Tiger is such a tremendous athlete, and hes proven time and time again that hes super-dedicated in terms of rehab, Campbell said. But the injury that he had will need several months before hell be back to functioning at a reasonable level.

Whenever hes ready, the game will be waiting for him.

I have no doubt in my mind he'll be back, Bryson DeChambeau said. Take him a little longer, I'm sure, but from my perspective he's one of the most impressive human beings I've ever met and I think that he'll come back just fine.

Rory McIlroy, one of Woods heirs in the game, offered a more philosophical perspective. Hes not Superman, McIlroy said Wednesday. Hes a human being at the end of the day. And hes already been through so much. At this stage, I think everyone should just be grateful that hes here, that hes alive, that his kids havent lost their dad. Thats the most important thing. Golf is so far from the equation right now, its not even on the map at this point.

_____

Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com.

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Each week during the 2020-21 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into three of the leagues biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether the trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

[Last week: Draymond Green's double standard, the struggling Celtics and NBA Top Shot]

The Lakers have lost four of their last five games and five of their last six, falling from a game behind the Western Conference-leading Utah Jazz to a game up on the fourth-place Phoenix Suns. Three of those losses have come by double digits. The stretch coincides with Anthony Davis' re-aggravation of his right Achilles strain in the first of them.

So, we shouldn't really be worried about the Lakers, right? As long as Davis returns to health by the playoffs, when he and LeBron James are the NBA's most dominant pairing, L.A. should still be the favorite to repeat as champions.

But ...

Achilles strains are no joke. We know what became of Kevin Durant's Achilles strain in the 2019 playoffs, which gives the Lakers every reason not to rush Davis back before he is fully healthy. The variance for Achilles injuries is wide. Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon missed two games last season with Achilles soreness, returned for four and rested one more before rejoining the lineup on a regular basis. Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love has yet to play this season with a more serious Achilles strain in the preseason. Davis is closer to Love on that spectrum.

Meanwhile, his injury lays bare the issues his dominance masked and places a greater burden on his running mates.

The Lakers tweaked their center rotation, swapping out Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee for Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell. On paper, it was an upgrade. In practice, it has made the Lakers less of a vertical threat. With almost 40% of their shots coming at the rim, the Lakers ranked second last season, per Cleaning the Glass. They are eighth this season, closer to 36%. Likewise, they have seen their ranking in opponents' field-goal percentage at the rim drop from fifth last season (61%) to 17th this season (63.4%). Their margin for error has been winnowed.

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The next few weeks could make or break LeBron James' MVP case. (Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

Their defense as a whole still ranks atop the league, which is another positive sign for the playoffs, but their offense has slipped from 11th last season to 17th this year. That should change when games are more meaningful, as it did last season, when their offense ranked first among the final eight teams, because James and Davis are just a lethal combination, and the Lakers have the rest of this regular season to maximize Gasol's floor spacing around them.

It could just be that the Lakers are finally running into the same problems that have plagued so many other teams this season. They have lost fewer games to injury and health protocols than the majority of the league, but starting point guard Dennis Schroder has also missed the past four games after his reported potential exposure to COVID-19. The Lakers have nobody else on the roster besides James who consistently creates for others. This week's release of beloved teammate Quinn Cook indicates they are gearing up to address one of their depth concerns.

All of this has placed an inordinate amount of pressure on James, who at 36 years old has played every game and exceeded 40 minutes in four of his last 10. The second half of the season is going to be more of a grind, especially if Davis' absence stretches beyond the weeks-long timeline the Lakers initially offered. James may be superhuman, and he is chasing his fifth MVP award, but is it really worth taxing him to improve the team's standing in the West?

With the Jazz stretching their lead atop the conference and facing one of the easiest remaining schedules, it might actually be better for the Lakers to finish fourth or fifth in the West. From a matchup standpoint, the second-place Clippers still pose a bigger threat to their repeat. (Who on the Jazz defends James and Davis?) Avoiding a second-round L.A. rivalry in hopes another team takes them out, as they did last year, is probably a more sound strategy.

All of this said, none of it may make a difference in the end. Barring any limitation of James and Davis, the Lakers will be favored to win every series they enter in the playoffs, concerns about slimmer margins and depth be damned.

Determination: Fiction

No team has been hit harder by injuries this season than the Magic, and it is not close. Two of their most important building blocks Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac are out for the season with torn ACLs. Rookie Cole Anthony (rib) is sidelined through the All-Star break, and Aaron Gordon (ankle) is in the middle of a four-to-six-week recovery.

All of this leads to the March 25 trade deadline.

Orlando has somehow won four of their last seven games, starting the likes of Dwayne Bacon, Gary Clark, James Ennis and Michael Carter-Williams around All-Star center Nikola Vucevic. They are just two wins back from a spot in the play-in tournament and a shot at a third straight playoff appearance. It is smoke and mirrors. Orlando is being outscored by 6.4 points per 100 possessions, essentially operating like the third-worst team in the entire league.

Which is what they should want to be. This is a stacked draft, featuring three or four potential franchise-altering prospects. The Magic know too well what it is like to pick beyond a draft's drop-off point. They missed Joel Embiid, Kristaps Porzingis, De'Aaron Fox and Trae Young by single picks from 2014-18. The one time they have had a top-three pick in the past decade, they got Victor Oladipo. (And gave up on him too early a story for another day.)

Orlando is a lost cause. Even when healthy, the Magic have been nothing more than first-round fodder since the 2010 Eastern Conference finals, when a No. 1 overall pick (Dwight Howard) made his last stand for them. How many of the roster's current players are going to be around when the team threatens to advance to the third round again?

The list goes no further than Fultz, Isaac, Anthony and maybe Chuma Okeke, their first-round pick from 2019 who missed all of last season with an ACL injury. Of course they should hold a fire sale. Evan Fournier's deal is expiring. Get what you can, while you can. Gordon is in his seventh season on the Magic. Time to cut bait. Terrence Ross is signed through 2023. Take what you can get. Mo Bamba, the sixth overall pick from 2018, is playing less than 10 minutes per game. Give him a chance, or extract some value before it is painfully obvious you have given up on him.

The biggest fish is Vucevic. The 30-year-old is enjoying a career statistical year (24.1 points on 48/40/84 shooting splits, 11.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game) in the void left by a depleted roster. He has two years left on his deal after this one. Nobody wants to trade their best player, but what is the Magic's ceiling with him in that role? Where will he be by the time they develop or sign someone better? He may never hold more value than he does right now. If it takes waiting until the summer to get the best haul for him, so be it, but it is beyond time to blow up the Magic.

Bradley Beal's belief in the Wizards is being rewarded. (Will Newton/Getty Images)

At season's start, I had the Wizards securing one of the East's eighth playoff spots. Two weeks ago, they were 6-17, owners of the fewest wins in the NBA and their conference's worst record. All-Star guard Bradley Beal was "damn tired" from carrying them even that far. He was also fresh off publicly committing to righting the ship in Washington.

Since then, they are 6-1, better than anybody but the surging Brooklyn Nets. This is not a soft 6-1. Their lone loss came agains the Clippers. They have beaten the Nuggets twice, along with the Lakers (albeit without Davis), Celtics, Blazers and Rockets. Washington has leapfrogged three teams in the standings, sitting two games back from a play-in spot with only one more loss than the fifth-place Toronto Raptors. A playoff berth is still very much on the table.

Beal's 32.8 points per game continue to lead the league in scoring. Russell Westbrook has more assists than anyone in the NBA over Washington's recent stretch, averaging a 19-11-11 despite abominable shooting (44/8/50 splits, thankfully on just two 3-point attempts per game). They are trying on defense. It is at least some semblance of the partnership we imagined, because how could two All-NBA-caliber talents not lead a team to the playoffs in the East?

And there is room to grow. The improvement has coincided with a starting lineup shift. A season-ending injury to Thomas Bryant and failed experiments with Robin Lopez and Alex Len afforded Moe Wagner a chance to start at center. The threat of his shooting opens a half step here or there for Beal and Westbrook to attack the basket. Same goes for undrafted second-year guard Garrison Matthews, who is shooting 43.8% on four 3's a night in the first eight starts of his career. Neither has been a disaster on defense, and the Wizards are no longer digging early holes.

Davis Bertans catching fire from distance has only further opened the floor for everyone. Rui Hachimura's mid-range game has benefited from spacing previously crunched by sharing the court with multiple non-shooting threats. Lopez has shifted to a reserve defensive specialist role, especially when they need stops and veteran stewardship in crunch time. One way or another, Wizards coach Scott Brooks has finally found a rotation that at least make sense.

None of it is great, but as far as the playoffs are concerned, the Wizards have a path they can believe in now.

Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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NBA Fact or Fiction: Trouble with the Lakers, a Magic fire sale and the surging Wizards - Yahoo Sports

Bitcoins (BTC) price tumbled along with U.S. stocks, bringing the cryptocurrencys decline since Sunday to 17%, the most for a two-day period since the coronavirus-fueled crash in March 2020. The decline has wiped out more than $100 billion of bitcoins market value, which last week climbed past $1 trillion for the first time.

And while many traders are still bullish on bitcoin in the long term, analysts said the largest cryptocurrency, now changing hands around $47,000, may have further to fall in the coming days, traders and analysts said.

The current market is extremely overheated, Flex Yang, founder and chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based crypto lender Babel Finance, told CoinDesk. Prices could fall as low as $40,000, he said.

Related: Opera Adds In-Browser Crypto Options With Simplex Integration

Bitcoin staged a mini-rebound Tuesday after the New York state attorney generals office announced a settlement of a dispute involving the stablecoin tether (USDT). But the rally proved short-lived and appeared to peter out as prices approached $50,000.

Market sentiment remains largely bullish, and there are signs some investors are buying the dip.

In China, demand for tether has gone up, as evidenced by the stablecoins premium over the Chinese yuan on over-the-counter trading desks, when prevailing foreign-exchange rates are taken into account.

For example, earlier on Tuesday, a screenshot of Huobi OTC, the similarly named exchanges fiat-to-crypto trading platform, showed a 2% premium between USDTs price, expressed in yuan, and the going exchange rate for the Chinese currency in U.S. dollar terms, per Bloomberg data.

Related: MicroStrategy Bets Another $1B on Bitcoin

Guy Hirsch, managing director for U.S. at eToro, told CoinDesk he saw 26% more new bitcoin positions opened than closed on the trading platform, which would help drive markets higher in the longer-term.

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We dont believe any of the weakness should be construed as being symptomatic of structural weakness or a lack of confidence in crypto assets, Joel Kruger, cryptocurrency strategist at institutional crypto exchange LMAX Digital, said. There will once again be tremendous opportunity for existing players to increase exposure and new participants to take on fresh exposure into the dip.

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Bitcoin Poised for Further Losses After Two-Day Plunge Wipes Out More Than $100B - Yahoo Finance