Delle Donne and Wilson are WNBA All-Star captains
NEW YORK >> Las Vegas will have a lot of its hometown players to root for at the WNBA All-Star Game on July 27.
Reigning rookie of the year A’ja Wilson is one of the team captains. She’ll be joined by Aces teammates Liz Cambage and Kayla McBride in the starting lineup. Wilson may feel pressure to draft her two teammates for the game when her team faces a group led by Elena Delle Donne, who is a captain for the second straight season.
Wilson and Delle Donne will select their teams from the other starters chosen by the fans, media and players.
Other frontcourt players include Phoenix’s Brittney Griner, Seattle’s Natasha Howard and Connecticut’s Jonquel Jones.
The four starting guards are Los Angeles’ Chelsea Gray, Seattle’s Jewell Loyd, McBride and New York’s Kia Nurse.
Pens’ Cullen retires after 21 seasons
PITTSBURGH >> Penguins center Matt Cullen has retired after a 21-season career that included three Stanley Cup titles.
The 42 year-old won a Cup with Carolina in 2006 and then consecutive titles with Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017.
Cullen had 266 goals, 465 assists and 502 penalty minutes over 1,516 games with Anaheim, Florida, Carolina, the Rangers, Ottawa, Minnesota, Nashville and Pittsburgh.
He also had 19 goals and 39 assists in 132 career playoff games.
Boxing champ Lebedev retires
MOSCOW >> Former world cruiserweight boxing champion Denis Lebedev retired aged 39 after a lengthy and colorful career.
Lebedev won the interim WBA cruiserweight title in 2011 against James Toney, and successfully defended it eight times to 2017.
Known for entering the ring in Russian paratrooper uniform, Lebedev finishes with a 32-2 win-loss record, 23 by knockout.
Russian deputy PM wins appeal
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND >> Vitaly Mutko, who was Russia’s Sports Minister during the doping-tainted Winter Olympics in Sochi, won an appeal against his lifetime ban from the games.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled the International Olympic Committee didn’t have the power to sanction Mutko in 2017 because he wasn’t an athlete, coach or officially part of an Olympic delegation. The ruling doesn’t force the IOC to invite Mutko to any future Olympics.
Former Baylor player’s sex assault conviction overturned
WACO, TEXAS >> A Texas appeals court has overturned for a second time the sexual assault conviction of a former Baylor University football player whose case ignited a scandal that rocked the nation’s largest Baptist school.
The Dallas-based 10th Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Sam Ukwuachu. It said prosecutors improperly used phone records in cross-examination interviews that hadn’t been submitted into evidence. The court said that created a “false impression” for the jury about witness testimony and violated Ukwuachu’s rights.
The same court had previously tossed Ukwuachu’s 2015 conviction, but it was reinstated by the state’s highest criminal appeals court last year.