Giannis’ brother to go pro
Dominican senior forward Alex Antetokounmpo is looking play professionally in Europe next season rather than play college basketball.
Antetokounmpo, the youngest brother of Milwaukee Bucks forwards Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, was a two-time first-team all-state selection for the Knights. He averaged 20 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in 2019-20.
Alex Antetokounmpo had reported Division scholarship offers from UW-Green Bay and Ohio.
The news of his choice was first reported by Nikos Varlas of Eurohoops.net on Saturday.
Antetokounmpo grew up in Greece before moving to the Milwaukee area in 2013 during Giannis’ rookie season with the Bucks. He will be eligible to enter the NBA draft in 2021.
IBASEBALL
Major League Baseball will cut its amateur draft from 40 rounds to five this year, a move that figures to save teams about $30 million.
Clubs gained the ability to reduce the draft as part of their March 26 agreement with the players’ association, and MLB plans to finalize a decision next week to go with the minimum.
There will be just 160 players drafted, by far the fewest since the annual selection started in 1965, and the combined value of their signing bonus pools is $235,906,800. The amount of signing bonus pool money eliminated is $29,578,100.
Teams made the move with the season delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and the sport trying to cut expenses to cope with revenue loss.
NFL
The New Orleans Saints cut three-time Pro Bowl right guard Larry Warford, whose three-year run as a starter was cast into doubt by the club’s selection of interior lineman Cesar Ruiz in the first round of the NFL draft.
Warford started all 44 games in which he played for New Orleans since signing a four-year, $34 million contract in 2017.
The 6-foot-3, 317-pound Warford also was named to the Pro Bowl for a third straight season in 2019, when he started 15 games.
But the drafting of Ruiz 24th overall was one of several developments in the past year that made Warford expendable in New Orleans.
AUTO RACING
The resurrection of Kyle Larson’s career began in Iowa Friday night in a $15,000-to-win World of Outlaws race.
Larson slipped to 15th on a restart on the sixth lap of the race, and in a 30-lap event he only had enough time to earn a 10th-place finish.
David Gravel, winner of the Knoxville Nationals last year, won the Invitational that was held without spectators on the semi-banked half-mile dirt oval located on the Marion County Fairgrounds in Knoxville.
Larson’s NASCAR career came to a sudden halt when he was fired by Chip Ganassi Racing for using a racial slur in an iRacing event late Easter Sunday.
From Journal Sentinel wire reports