Draft Sports

A year ago, Marv Marinovich believed he had silenced critics of his controversial athletic training methods. His son Todd, custom-coached from infancy with Soviet Bloc techniques, had turned into a star quarterback at USC, a lucrative future in pro football ahead of him. Marinovich's other son, Mikhail, had been analyzed at the age of 2 as possessing "fast-twitch muscle fiber" and was already jogging two miles. Parents continued to bring children into his Anaheim gym for training.

Now, Lamar and Khloe in Philadelphia? Oh, that will go over well with the cast and crew! Fortunately, at least for their reality TV show ... if not the Lakers who would have loved Andre Iguodala ... Lamar Odom didn't really go to Philadelphia. With none of the NBA's other, quote, reported discussions leading to anything, the draft Thursday turned into a massive yawner. No, Steve Nash didn't go to Minnesota for the No. 2 pick. No, the San Antonio Spurs' Tony Parker didn't go anywhere.

He's $160,000 richer and a little tired of a baseball world that has largely written him off. Dan Opperman, the Dodgers' first-round pick in the spring free-agent draft, is recuperating from surgery for a frayed ligament in his right elbow. The right-hander says he'll be on the mound next spring, and he has a bit of advice for those skeptics who think he's less a pitcher than the one scouts once drooled over. "If they want to write me off, let them do it," Opperman said.

It wasn't an overwhelming NFL draft for USC, but it was a history-making one. In the seventh round Saturday, three Trojans were selected in consecutive order: running back Stanley Havili to Philadelphia (No. 240 overall), receiver David Ausberry to Oakland (241) and linebacker Malcolm Smith to Seattle (242). The closest USC has come to a run like that in the NFL's modern era was in 1977, when Ricky Bell was picked first overall, Marvin Powell went fourth and Gary Jeter fifth. Other Trojans taken Saturday were tight end Jordan Cameron (fourth round, Cleveland)

Alabama's Andre Smith is a left tackle in the truest sense. He's a tackle. And he left. Smith, considered among the top three prospects at his position, abruptly left the NFL scouting combine Saturday, skipping his workout and flying to Alabama unannounced. He told the NFL Network he did so to continue preparations for his March 11 pro day on campus. Smith, who didn't feel ready to perform for teams here, had been booked on a 4 p.m. flight but changed his reservation to leave at 6 a.m.

There are more coveted offensive tackles in this NFL draft class, but none with a more compelling story than California's Mike Tepper. By Tepper's count, he told the story 40 times Thursday, the first day of the scouting combine. Most intrigued were NFL team doctors, who snapped to attention when he explained the surgery scars on his lower right leg. "When you do these medical exams downstairs with five or six doctors, they hear you broke your leg and say, 'How'd it happen?

Magic Johnson would have returned to Michigan State rather than play for the Chicago Bulls. "I'd have stayed in school," he said here Tuesday, standing alone outside Gate 3 1/2 of Chicago Stadium, the house that could have been his. "A coin toss changed the course of my whole life." Chicago called heads in a 1979 coin flip with Los Angeles for the No. 1 pick in the NBA college draft. It came up tails.

Don't you just love it? The NFL draft is complete, and everybody won. Nobody reached. Nobody traded down when they should have traded up. Nobody, but nobody, selected a stiff. "Of course everybody likes all of their draft picks," said Charley Casserly, Washington Redskin general manager. "If you don't like your draft picks now, when are you going to like them?" But we know better. Sometime during the last two days, in some draft room around the league, somebody cursed.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Basketball already is a job for Kevin Love. His schedule before this week proves it. He's awake and eating breakfast by 6:30 a.m. He has made the trip from his Westwood apartment to the Home Depot Center in Carson by 8:15 a.m. There he joins UCLA teammate Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Arizona's Chase Budinger in a weight room where the three players spend 90 minutes doing workouts tailored for their particular needs by Joe Abunassar, founder and owner of Impact Basketball.

For all Ryan McGuire did on the baseball field at UCLA this spring--a display of breathtaking offense and near-flawless defense--it is his personality that seems to leave people most spellbound. McGuire, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound first baseman from El Camino Real High, appears to be living his own nostalgic baseball dream while preparing to enter an occupation that, according to many, has been poisoned by labor disputes, million-dollar contract wars and money-hungry agents. Listen to what he says.

Times NFL writer Sam Farmer looks at the bold (and potentially backward) draft decisions of each NFL team: Arizona Heady move: Cardinals got cornerback Patrick Peterson with the fifth pick. When they had the fifth pick four years ago, they let a guy with the same last name -- running back Adrian Peterson -- slip past in favor of tackle Levi Brown. Oops. Head scratcher: Took Virginia Tech running back Ryan Williams in the second round. Cardinals used a first-round pick on Beanie Wells only two years ago, plus they already have Tim Hightower and LaRod Stephens-Howling.

The NFL is a passing league. Nobody made that case in a more compelling way Thursday than the four teams that took quarterbacks in the first 12 picks of the draft -- the biggest early run since 1999. The NFL is a passing league. Don't remind the Baltimore Ravens, who had the 26th pick and were trying to negotiate a trade with Chicago when the clock ran out on them. That allowed the next team in line, the Kansas City Chiefs, to slip in and make their pick before the Ravens could regroup.

The Clippers were practically un-Clipperlike a year ago … almost boring, in fact. They had a general manager-coach (Mike Dunleavy) firmly in place and there was almost no suspense heading into draft day, considering Blake Griffin was sealed and delivered, though not signed. Boring is so yesterday. Arbitration with Dunleavy over his remaining salary owed is looming. And the Clippers head into their most important summer in years without a coach, free agency kicks off July 1, and unlike last year, their selection in Thursday's NBA draft is not certain.

For the first time, the NFL has broken the draft into three days, beginning with the first round Thursday(4:30 p.m. PDT; ESPN, NFL Network). Times NFL writer Sam Farmer takes a look at how Round 1 could unfold: 1. St. Louis: QB Sam Bradford, Oklahoma — By releasing Marc Bulger, the Rams have cleared the way to begin the Bradford era. 2. Detroit: DT Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska — Jim Schwartz wants to rebuild the defense he...

In one sense, Florida's Tim Tebow looks like every other high-profile quarterback at the NFL scouting combine. Yet another passer not throwing for the scouts. The challenge for Tebow is to look a little more mainstream. The 2007 Heisman Trophy winner is the most intriguing work in progress in this draft class, a player who is reconstructing his throwing motion to be more NFL-friendly. He's working to eliminate his swooping windup in order to get rid of the ball quicker. An overdue overhaul?

There are more coveted offensive tackles in this NFL draft class, but none with a more compelling story than California's Mike Tepper. By Tepper's count, he told the story 40 times Thursday, the first day of the scouting combine. Most intrigued were NFL team doctors, who snapped to attention when he explained the surgery scars on his lower right leg. "When you do these medical exams downstairs with five or six doctors, they hear you broke your leg and say, 'How'd it happen?

Georgia Tech guard Kenny Anderson, the second player chosen in the NBA draft, signed a contract with the New Jersey Nets worth $14 million over five years, ESPN reported Wednesday. Net spokesman John Tudhope said, "At this point there is no contract." But ESPN said the team is arranging a special loan to keep the deal under the league's salary cap. The 6-foot-2 Anderson, who left school after two seasons, averaged 25.9 points for the Yellow Jackets last year.

On the day Ethan Martin said his dream came true, he couldn't separate himself from the incident that turned his final high school game into a nightmare. Martin, 18, a right-handed pitcher from Georgia, was selected by the Dodgers with the 15th pick of baseball's first-year player draft Thursday. After, he fielded questions on a conference call about how he became a full-time pitcher only two years ago and the unlikelihood of him honoring his scholarship to Clemson.

The No. 1 question heading into this week's NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis is just that -- the No. 1 question. Who will emerge from the combine with the inside track on becoming the top pick in April's draft? Defense is likely to dominate the top of this draft (April 22-24), and the next step in the evaluation process begins Thursday when coaches, scouts and general managers gather at Lucas Oil Stadium to test players. The three top players heading into the combine come from that side of the ball: defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska and Gerald McCoy of Oklahoma, and safety Eric Berry of Tennessee.

Not that DeMar DeRozan is an expert on the city of Toronto, but a recent visit left him impressed. "I was up there about a day and a half, great town, ate, saw the city and it was beautiful," he said. "It reminded me of a mini-New York." Now he'll get a chance to know it a lot better.