Greenberg: Angel Reese an All-Star, Teuvo's back, Cubs/White Sox bad, Bulls questionable (2024)

Maybe all that new money coming into the league has allowed the WNBA to afford script writers.

Because even if you’re already tired of the Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese narrative, well, how about a Clark and Reese one?

On Tuesday night, it was announced that both players made the WNBA All-Star team for a July 20 game against the U.S. national team at Footprint Center in Phoenix. Clark led all players with 700,735 votes, and Reese was fifth with 381,518.

It was fitting for Reese that the honor came on a night in which she snagged 19 rebounds, the most for any player this season. Reese leads the league with 11.8 per game to go along with her 13.2-point average. Earlier in the day, Reese was named June’s rookie of the month after averaging 14.5 points and 13.2 rebounds and breaking Candace Parker’s record for consecutive double-doubles. Reese got 10-plus rebounds in all 11 games in June. In the Sky’s win against the Fever on June 23, she had 25 points and 16 boards.

After “falling” to No. 7 in the draft, Reese is showing that she’s the real deal.

Angel Reese got emotional after learning she made her first All-Star Game 🥹

🎥 @YahooSportspic.twitter.com/bdKO0cx9Oj

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) July 3, 2024

Meanwhile, Clark has handled an absurd amount of pressure and attention with aplomb. She was the rookie of the month in May after averaging 17.6 points, 6.6 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game. After Tuesday’s blowout loss to Las Vegas, she is averaging 16 points, 7.1 assists (third overall) and 5.7 rebounds.

This is what we call a rookie of the year race, folks.

Frankly, this couldn’t be going any better if the WNBA scripted it. Not only are the two neck and neck for the rookie of the year award after a contentious start to the season, but it looks like their teams are going to be battling it out for one of the last two playoff spots.

The Sky improved to 7-11 with an 85-77 win over the Atlanta Dream (7-11), while the Fever dropped to 8-13 with their loss. The Sky and Fever play for the final time this year on Aug. 30 at Wintrust Arena. If it’s anything like their last game, it’ll be memorable.

But first, we’ll get to see Clark and Reese play nice together. That will be a nice plot twist.

So, there’s your positive Chicago Sky update. Now let’s talk about all the losers in town.

I have an idea for a new product for The Athletic. We’ll only send text alerts when the Cubs win. So don’t expect too many updates.

Who would’ve thought in a season in which the White Sox could conceivably set a major-league mark for losses that the Cubs would be a more disappointing team.

On Tuesday night, the Cubs lost yet another series opener, falling to the Phillies (who didn’t have Bryce Harper or Kyle Schwarber) 6-4.

This is the eighth consecutive series opener they’ve dropped. And if you throw out that two-game sweep of the White Sox on June 4-5, you can tack on another three series.

The Cubs (39-47) were 21-14 after they played their first NL Central opponent, taking two of three against the Milwaukee Brewers in early May. They are 18-33 since, a last-place team with a 10-19 record in the division. They trail Milwaukee by 12 games in the Central and they’re looking up at seven other teams in the “race” for the third wild card.

"We've gotta do more offensively."

The Cubs had only two hits through the first 8 innings tonight. pic.twitter.com/Q2XfRaHoy1

— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) July 3, 2024

With an $8 million-a-year manager in Craig Counsell, it’s fair to expect the Cubs to be better prepared, but the blame goes to the players and the front office that assembled this team. Cubs president Jed Hoyer has no excuses. This is his team. He hit the reset button in his first year in charge and discarded the core of the World Series team, and all but Kyle Schwarber, who remains awesome, have proven him prescient.

Bullpen injuries and woes aside, the Cubs can’t hit, which means they can’t score runs, which means they can’t win games.

It’s gotten to the point where you can’t even get frustrated about this team. We know what they are. We’ve seen this before.

The White Sox (24-63) also lost on Tuesday night, which is what they do most nights.

Their 7-6 loss to the Guardians dropped them to 31 games behind Cleveland in the standings, 6-22 in the AL Central and 8-34 on the road. I’ve become inured to their historic awfulness. Even John Schriffen growling like a panther after a Luis Robert home run doesn’t so much as make me ironically hit the retweet button.

LA PANTERA TIES IT UP 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/rnJnskIhW9

— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) June 29, 2024

But still, those are just awful numbers. Through 87 games, they have the same record as the 120-loss New York Mets, your standard bearer for big-league lousiness.

The focus for first-year GM Chris Getz is the trade deadline and everyone can be moved. The only two players that anyone cares about, though, are Garrett Crochet and Robert, the team’s only stars.

Both are available and, yes, Getz should be looking to move them, but only for prospect packages that force his hand. Neither player is entering free agency. He has the leverage. But only so much.

Crochet, who has a 3.02 ERA in 18 starts, leads baseball with 141 strikeouts, but his 101 1/3 innings are also already the most of his young career. If a team is going to trade for him, they should do so soon so they can map out how they want to use him for the rest of the season. The Sox have said they’re going to scale back his workload, but any team who acquires him will be doing it with October in mind. That might lessen his value on the open market, and if that’s the case and Getz doesn’t think he sign him to an extension before he becomes a free agent after the 2026 season, he should move him this winter.

As for Robert, he hit his 10th homer of the season Tuesday, which was only the third of his career from the leadoff spot. Robert went 2-for-4 with four RBIs. Getz doesn’t have to trade him either. Not only is Robert signed for next year at a bargain $15 million, he has a pair of $20 million club options for 2026-27. If I’m running a small- to medium-market team with a deep farm system and a dream of actually winning in the big leagues, I’d make a push to trade for Robert. Sure, he has his injury issues and his plate discipline needs work, but here’s a chance to acquire a difference-maker at a reasonable price. (Big-market teams can also do this.)

Getz has plenty of other assets he can deal for prospects at the deadline, and while all of baseball is going to be watching to see if he parts with Crochet and Robert, Sox fans should hope he keeps a steady head about him.

So picture this Bulls core: Coby White, Nikola Vučević, Zach LaVine, Josh Giddey, Patrick Williams, Jalen Smith, Ayo Dosunmu and Matas Buzelis. And I guess Lonzo Ball if he’s healthy and the team doesn’t just let him go.

I know what you’re thinking: Can this Bulls team continue its two-year reign as the ninth-best team in the Eastern Conference? If things work out as planned, the answer will be, thankfully, no.

Artūras Karnišovas doesn’t have to lie to do that executive thing where they won’t admit they’re rebuilding, because he’s almost allergic to acquiring draft picks. But the Bulls can only keep their 2025 first-round pick if they finish in the top 10 of the lottery (or else it goes to San Antonio), so this group looks just bad enough to avoid the Play-In Tournament and keep their pick.

After Alex Caruso was traded for Giddey, DeMar DeRozan seems headed elsewhere too. Karnišovas said he was going to make changes after another lackluster season, and those two veterans are the only ones with real value around the league. (To be fair, center Andre Drummond just signed with the 76ers.)

Though he has added Giddey, Buzelis (the team’s only draft pick) and the young center Smith this offseason, Karnišovas can’t truly be committed to a youth movement as long as he is employing Vučević and LaVine, and while I know free agency just started, it doesn’t look like anyone else is interested in making them ID badges.

With or without those two, this team will be shaky and its future will remain very uncertain and Bulls fans will be angry online.

But if you’re still watching (or paying a lot of money for tickets), at least you’ll get to see Giddey fling passes around like Timothée Chalamet auditioning for a remake of “The Basketball Diaries.” That could put a smile on your face.

It’s been a newsy week for the Blackhawks, who drafted Artyom Levshunov No. 2 overall, along with a bunch of other guys I’ve never heard of, and signed a slew of free agents. (Their disgraced former head coach Joel Quenneville and GM Stan Bowman were also reinstated by the NHL.) The one free-agent signing I’m most excited about is our old friend Teuvo Teravainen. Not because I’m addicted to Blackhawks nostalgia, but so I can tweet out his picture The Athletic’s Scott Powers took of him in Finland back in 2016.

This was just a few months into The Athletic’s existence, so we didn’t yet have the budget to send Scott to photography school. But this picture will always remind me of that crazy, exciting first year. You can see how excited Teuvo was about appearing on The Athletic.

Tim Anderson being designated for assignment by Miami on Tuesday was not surprising, though still deflating.

Last year, Anderson’s production dipped precipitously with the White Sox, as he played in 123 games (524 plate appearances) and slashed .245/.286/.296 with one home run. His 60 wRC+ meant he was 40 percent worse than the average hitter. It was his worst season in the majors, low-lighted by the time he started a fight with Cleveland second baseman José Ramirez and lost, badly.

After watching him sink, Getz declined a pretty affordable option on Anderson after no team showed any interest in trading for him. He still signed with the Marlins for $5 million but his decline continued.

Marlins manager Skip Schumaker tonight pre-game on the decision to part ways with Tim Anderson:

“That’s the toughest part. When the guy’s put in so much work and there was just no production, nothing to show for it. That’s when you feel most for the player.”

(🎥 @Local10Sports) pic.twitter.com/XOabx0lOJ3

— Will Manso (@WillMansoWPLG) July 2, 2024

Through 65 games with the Marlins before his release, he was slashing .214/..237/.226 with zero home runs and only three doubles. His wRC+ was 31 and he was striking out at a career-high 28.2 percent with an ISO (isolated power) of .013, which was the worst in baseball (for anyone with at least 240 plate appearances), behind White Sox second baseman Nicky Lopez.

To zip this up, he’s been the worst hitter in baseball not named Javy Báez. (Did anyone frame this Sports Illustrated cover in 2020?)

Even before the DFA, Anderson’s baseball future was undoubtedly going to include the words “minor-league invite to camp.” Now, his next stop could be Korea or Mexico. Let’s hope he finds his way back to the big leagues because baseball was more fun when Tim Anderson was Tim Anderson.

(Top photo: Dale Zanine / NBAE via Getty Images)