Latest news with #Memphis
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Grizzlies Announce Trade With Rockets After NBA Draft
Grizzlies Announce Trade With Rockets After NBA Draft originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Memphis Grizzlies haven't been shy to trade recently. After dealing Desmond Bane to the Orlando Magic before the NBA Finals ended, they also traded up from pick No. 16 to No. 11 and selected Washington State swingman Cedric Coward on Wednesday. Advertisement Memphis sent out a 2028 first-rounder (via Orlando), a 2027 second-rounder (via the Atlanta Hawks), and a 2028 second-rounder (via the Sacramento Kings) in the deal. The 6-foot-5-inch Coward shot 38.8 percent from deep in college and a combined 2.5 blocks and steals this past season. The Grizzlies also acquired the No. 59 overall pick's draft rights after the second round finished, via their social media. Tennessee Volunteers forward Tobe Awaka (11) and guard Jahmai Mashack (15).Lon Horwedel/USA TODAY Sports "The Memphis Grizzlies today announced the team has agreed in principle to acquire the draft rights to Jahmai Mashack, the No. 59 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, from the Houston Rockets as part of a trade that is not yet final," they said. Advertisement They announced the deal shortly after midnight EST on Friday. Mahsack averaged 4.2 points on 44 percent shooting (34.3 percent 3 PT) with 2.8 rebounds and 1.2 assists over 18.2 minutes across four seasons for Tennessee. The Volunteers converted the 6-foot-4-inch, 201-pounder to a full-time starter this past season. Mahsack averaged 5.8 points on 42.1 percent shooting (30 percent 3 PT) with four rebounds for the Volunteers in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. Memphis also selected West Virginia guard Javon Small No. 48 overall. Next up for Coward, Small, and Mahsack is Summer League, which will take place in July. Advertisement Related: Cedric Coward Sends Ja Morant Message After Grizzlies' NBA Draft Trade Related: Grizzlies Trade Report Drops After Jaren Jackson Jr. Decision This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 28, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
KCP's ‘excited' reaction to being included in Desmond Bane-Magic trade to Grizzlies
The post KCP's 'excited' reaction to being included in Desmond Bane-Magic trade to Grizzlies appeared first on ClutchPoints. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is looking ahead with optimism after being dealt to the Memphis Grizzlies in a blockbuster trade that sent Desmond Bane to the Orlando Magic on Father's Day. Advertisement The 32-year-old veteran guard addressed the trade on the latest episode of Dawg Talk with J Mac and Kenny Gaines, revealing that while the news came during a family vacation, his initial surprise eventually gave way to excitement about joining Memphis. 'I knew before everybody, it wasn't really breaking news for me, but it happened Father's Day,' Caldwell-Pope said. 'I'm on vacation with my family… it's literally about 11:30–11:35, almost noon, and I'm going to get something out of my bag, and my phone is vibrating, but I don't get to it in time.' 'So I'm checking, and it's my agent – he never calls me multiple times, so it's literally like three to four times, like damn, let me get to my phone and call him back. As soon as I call, you just got traded to the Grizzlies… quick shock because it kinda hit me right there like, damn, it's Father's Day. I didn't want to get this type of news; we could've at least waited until Monday.' Kentavious Caldwell-Pope says trade from Magic to Grizzlies was emotional but exciting John Jones-USA TODAY Sports Caldwell-Pope admitted the timing made it difficult to process at first, especially when it came to informing his family. But as he reflected on the trade and the Grizzlies' direction, he felt confident in the fit. Advertisement 'The more I thought about it, the more excited I got about it, even though I was a little sad because it happened on Father's Day,' he said. 'I know this game; I know this business, but the more I thought about the trade, the team that I was going to, the players I was going to be playing with – I know some of the guys – and then the way the organization is trying to go, I felt like I fit right in. I got super excited.' Caldwell-Pope was acquired alongside Cole Anthony in exchange for Desmond Bane, who was sent to the Magic for four unprotected first-round picks and one pick swap. The Grizzlies are coming off a challenging 2024–25 season that ended in a first-round sweep at the hands of the Western Conference champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Star guard Ja Morant was injured during the series, further compounding Memphis' postseason struggles. Advertisement Caldwell-Pope joins a Memphis roster aiming to retool around a healthy core and return to contention. The former NBA champion is entering his 13th season after spending one year with Orlando, where he averaged 8.7 points, 2.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.3 steals per game. He appeared in 77 games, shooting 43.9% from the field and 34.2% from three-point range across 29.6 minutes per night. Signed to a three-year, $66 million deal last offseason, Caldwell-Pope brings perimeter defense, veteran experience, and playoff pedigree to a Grizzlies team looking to rebound after a difficult year. Related: Desmond Bane reveals wild timing of when Magic trade went down Related: Orlando Magic's nightmare outcome for 2025 NBA Draft
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Grizzlies rumors: Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr. ‘focus' after Desmond Bane trade
The post Grizzlies rumors: Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr. 'focus' after Desmond Bane trade appeared first on ClutchPoints. The Grizzlies are heading into the offseason with one clear goal in mind, and it involves Jaren Jackson Jr. The front office made the stunning decision this offseason to trade Desmond Bane to the Orlando Magic. Memphis received a significant haul in return, including two quality role players in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony, four unprotected first-round picks, and a future first-round pick swap in the deal. Advertisement While there was some initial belief that the Grizzlies might be starting over with this move, it's becoming very clear that the Bane trade was the franchise retooling its roster around franchise cornerstones Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. In particular, the Grizzlies' star big man has only one more year left on his current deal. And based on a recent update given by senior NBA reporter Jake Fischer, Memphis' primary focus this offseason will be to reach a contract extension with the two-time All-Star. As for the other, pivotal moves this franchise will make this offseason, Fischer further details why the Grizzlies, especially heading into the NBA Draft, are somewhat of an enigma. 'The Grizzlies rank as real wildcards that suddenly find themselves operating in the middle of the first round. That means playing catch-up on bringing draft prospects to town since Memphis acquired that No. 16 pick from the Magic in the Desmond Bane blockbuster that shook the whole league on Father's Day. That section of the draft is so fluid as is, with numerous teams — starting with Toronto at No. 9 — seemingly open to fielding trade offers once they come on the clock. The word on the Grizzlies, at this juncture, is that it wouldn't be a surprise if they moved in either direction. They have been one of the more active teams in recent drafts regarding trading up, down, or out of the first round, depending on circumstances. What we know for certain about the Grizz: Sources say that Memphis, in the wake of the Bane trade, is focused on preserving as much financial flexibility as possible to renegotiate-and-extend the contract of star forward Jaren Jackson Jr. as well as fending off external interest in restricted free agent Santi Aldama.' Advertisement Memphis is coming off an uneven season that saw the franchise move on from head coach Taylor Jenkins. Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. are both entering their respective primes, meaning that the front office certainly expects this team to be a significant player in the Western Conference for years to come. Clearly, the Grizzlies believed there was a limited ceiling to the Morant, Jackson Jr., and Bane trio, and instead, the front office is choosing to fill out the rest of its roster with this trade Overall, Jackson Jr.'s missing an All-NBA team does not make him eligible for the supermax extension. Therefore, the Grizzlies will have the financial flexibility to continue building a competent supporting cast around the star forward and Durant for the foreseeable future. It'll be interesting to see how many of these picks from the Bane trade the franchise uses. Related: Grizzlies give 7-foot insurance policies final look before 2025 NBA Draft Related: Grizzlies' 10 worst NBA Draft day mistakes in history
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Virtual Elvis Week 2025 Live From Graceland
Graceland announces virtual passes are on sale now, bringing their Elvis Week celebration to fans worldwide. MEMPHIS, Tenn., June 27, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elvis Presley's Graceland has announced that Virtual Elvis Week will return this year! Virtual Elvis Week 2025 - Live from Graceland, August 8-16, will allow viewers to celebrate the legacy of the King of Rock 'n' Roll through an online experience with live concert events, conversations with special guests, ultimate contests, and unique fan experiences. This year's Virtual Elvis Week will feature 10 events broadcasted live from the Graceland Soundstage: The Ultimate Return; Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest Semifinal and Final Round; Elvis Gospel Celebration; That's The Way It Is: A Tribute; Elvis: An Author's Perspective; A Night in Elvis' Hollywood; Elvis Music Salute, Conversations on Elvis; and Elvis: Live on Stage. Virtual Elvis Week 2025 will be streamed live in pristine HD with soundboard audio, so Elvis fans will be able to experience Elvis Week as it's happening. All shows included in each pass can be watched live, plus every event is rewatchable for 10 days after its conclusion to give fans a chance to relive their favorite moments again and again. There are three Virtual Elvis Week Pass options to choose from to allow fans to curate their online experience. The Elvis Super Fan Pass is the premium offering and was created for the ultimate Elvis fan who doesn't want to miss a thing. This pass includes virtual access to ALL 10 Elvis Week Soundstage events on Aug 8-16, including all the performances, special guest interviews, and memorable moments on our celebration main stage. Enjoy everything from Elvis tribute artist shows and competitions to Elvis music salutes, conversations, a celebration of Elvis' career in Hollywood, and more! PLUS – as a special bonus – enjoy a pre-recorded virtual tour of Graceland Mansion and Elvis Presley's Memphis Entertainment Complex, AND a pre-recorded Show & Tell at the new 90 for 90 Exhibit, hosted by Angie Marchese, Graceland's VP of Archives and Exhibits! For fans seeking virtual access to a select set of Elvis Week events, the Elvis Tribute Artist Pass or the Elvis Fan Package, offer good options to meet specific interests. The Elvis Tribute Artist Pass features access to five incredible Elvis tribute artist events on August 8-11 as they premiere, including three events featuring fan-favorite past Ultimate winners such as Brandon Bennett, Jay Dupuis, Cote Deonath, Dwight Icenhower, David Lee, Taylor Rodriguez, Emilio Santoro, Victor Trevino Jr, and Dean Z. Plus, witness the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest Semifinal and Final Rounds, as 20 talented artists vie for the 2025 champion title. The Elvis Fan Pass includes five marquee Elvis Week events as they premiere on August 13-16 at the Graceland Soundstage: Elvis: An Author's Perspective, A Night in Elvis' Hollywood, Elvis Music Salute, Conversations on Elvis, and Elvis: Live on Stage Concert. Fans can enjoy appearances by Linda Thompson, Jerry Schilling, Tony Orlando, Brenda Lee, Terry Blackwood, Jim Murray, Larry Strickland, Estelle Brown, Carol Connors, Sandy Kawelo, Peter Guralnick, Robin and Gavin Koon, Marlyn Mason, Ann Moses, among others! For additional details and to purchase a pass, visit As always, Graceland will also livestream free-of-charge the annual Candlelight Vigil held at Graceland on the evening of August 15. There are also great tickets still available to many of the Elvis Week events for fans who want be there in person in Memphis. Find out more at About Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. Elvis Presley's Graceland, in Memphis, is music's most important and beloved landmark, with hundreds of thousands of fans from around the world visiting the historic home each year. Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. (EPE) manages the operations of Graceland and its related properties, including Elvis Presley's Memphis, Graceland's entertainment and exhibition complex over 200,000 square feet in size; the new 80,000 square feet Graceland Exhibition Center featuring rotating exhibits; the AAA Four Diamond Guest House at Graceland 450-room resort hotel; and the Graceland Archives, featuring thousands of artifacts from Elvis' home and career. EPE also produces and licenses Elvis-themed live events, tours, and attractions worldwide. Graceland Holdings LLC, led by managing partner Joel Weinshanker, is the majority owner of EPE. Graceland is the only attraction worldwide to ever receive 12 USA Today 10Best Readers' Choice Awards including "Best Holiday Historic Home Tour," "Best Tennessee Attraction and Iconic Landmark," "Best Musical Attraction," "Best Historic Southern Attraction," and the #1 "Iconic American Attraction." The TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards named Graceland the most popular attraction in Tennessee and one of the top 25 landmarks in the world and Rolling Stone named it one of 10 Great American Music Landmarks. For more information on EPE and Graceland, visit Stay connected to Elvis Presley's Graceland: Graceland Live Cam @ElvisPresleysGraceland on Facebook @VisitGraceland on Twitter (X) and Instagram @OfficialGraceland on YouTube @GracelandLive on Facebook @GracelandLiveConcerts on Instagram @LiveGraceland on Twitter SiriusXM's Elvis Radio, Channel 76 View source version on Contacts Alicia Dean | media@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Times
Fred Smith obituary: billionaire founder of FedEx
Fred Smith was near the end of his junior, or third, year at Yale in 1965 when he dashed off an essay proposing a 'hub-and-spoke' system for parcel delivery. His plan involved collecting parcels from local depots and transporting them to a central hub for overnight sorting before delivering them to their destination the following day. 'If a hospital in Texas needs a heart valve tomorrow, it needs it tomorrow,' he said, recalling a time when American parcel deliveries routinely took days or even weeks. The idea was not original. 'It had been done in transportation before: the Indian post office, the French post office. American Airlines had tried a system like that shortly after the Second World War,' he said. However, his professors were lukewarm and supposedly awarded his paper a C grade, although the essay itself was lost and its author later claimed not to remember the details. Smith turned his paper into Federal Express, making its headquarters in the centrally located city of Memphis, Tennessee. On the first night of operations, April 17, 1973, the company shipped 86 packages to 25 US cities using 14 Dassault Falcon 20 jets, one of which, called Wendy, is now at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. It was far from an overnight success, quickly burning through investors' money. An oft-told tale is that Smith once flew to Las Vegas to gamble the company's last $5,000 on blackjack and won $27,000, enough to cover that week's fuel bill. Air crew were asked to delay cashing their pay cheques; one courier in Cleveland pawned his watch to pay an aircraft fuel bill; and a pilot in Indianapolis paid for his hotel room with a personal credit card. Under the mantra 'People, Service, Profit', Federal Express grew steadily, expanding more rapidly after the deregulation of US air cargo in 1977. The following year it adopted the advertising slogan 'Absolutely Positively Overnight', a phrase that has passed into popular parlance and is the title of a 1988 unofficial history of the company. In 1983 it became the first US company to achieve a $1 billion turnover within a decade without mergers or acquisitions. Three years later it landed in Britain, buying Lex Wilkinson, the domestic parcels carrier, and set up a base in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. By 1989 Federal Express was second only to Royal Mail in terms of volume of packages carried. Today FedEx, as the business was rebranded in 1994, is so synonymous with logistics that the name has become a verb, as customers 'fedex' more than 17 million parcels a day to 220 countries and territories. The company boasts of its role in delivering ancient Egyptian artefacts, parts salvaged from the Titanic and the first Covid-19 vaccines in 2021. Although Smith lobbied hard for President Trump's first-term corporate tax cuts, which reduced FedEx's tax bill from $1.5 billion to zero, he did not see eye to eye with the president on international trade. 'An increasing percentage of manufactured goods are high value-added and technology products and these tend to be easy to transport,' he once told The Daily Telegraph. 'Because of that, globalisation continues inexorable. My guess is that the vast majority of manufactured goods will cross at least one border in the future.' Frederick Wallace Smith was born in Marks, Mississippi, in 1944, the son of Sally (née West) and her husband James Smith, also known as Fred, who had made his fortune with a regional bus company that became part of the Greyhound line and the Toddle House restaurant chain, but died when Fred was four. He was raised by his mother and several uncles who 'were very good to me in terms of teaching me a few things about life'. As a child he suffered from Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, a form of juvenile arthritis, and was forced to use crutches and watch sport from the sidelines. It cleared up by the time he was ten and, with the family having moved to Tennessee, he was educated at Memphis University School. In his teens he was a keen reader, especially of military and aviation history, and took up flying despite his mother's objections. 'You can always say if anything happens to me, I died doing what I wanted to do,' he told her. While studying economics and political science at Yale he was a member of the Skull and Bones secret society and re-established the Yale flying club, which had first been organised in the 1910s by Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan Am. He was friendly with George W Bush, a fellow student and the future president, and John Kerry, Bush's rival in the 2004 election. However, in the summer of 1963 he crashed while driving to a lake in Memphis, killing Michael Gadberry, his passenger. Charges of involuntary manslaughter were dismissed by a judge. Between 1966 and 1969 Smith served two tours of Vietnam with the US Marine Corps, on one occasion narrowly surviving a Viet Cong ambush. He received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, but later told an interviewer: 'I got so sick of destruction and blowing things up … that I came back determined to do something more constructive.' Meanwhile, his observations of military delivery systems galvanised his belief that the world needed a reliable, overnight parcel service. 'In the military there's a tremendous amount of waste,' he explained. 'The supplies were sort of pushed forward, like you push food on to a table. And invariably all the supplies were in the wrong place for where they were needed.' In 1969, he married Linda Grisham, his high-school girlfriend. The marriage was dissolved in 1977 and in 2006 he married Diane Avis, his long-term partner, who survives him. He had two children from his first marriage and eight from his second. They include Windland, known as Wendy, a photographer who predeceased him; Molly, a film producer who worked for Alcon, a film company in which he invested; Arthur, a former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, an American football team; and Richard, an executive at FedEx. On demobilisation Smith joined his stepfather, a retired air force colonel called Fred Hook, at Arkansas Aviation Sales, a struggling operation providing services for visiting aircraft at Adams Field airport (now known as the Clinton national airport) in Little Rock, Arkansas. He used an inheritance from his father to buy out Hook and moved into private jet maintenance and sales, but quickly grew disenchanted with the unscrupulous characters in aircraft brokerage. His thoughts turned to transporting cheques between clearing banks, a notoriously slow and inefficient process. The plan was to collect cheques every day from regional branches of the Federal Reserve Bank, fly them to a central hub for processing and dispatch the sorted bundles to the correct branch the following morning. Because his only client was the Federal Reserve he named his fledgling business Federal Express, but the bank pulled out at the last minute and he turned his attention instead to parcels. The business was just taking off when Fredette Smith Eagle and Laura Ann Patterson, half-sisters from one of his father's previous three marriages, brought legal action alleging that he had sold shares from the family's trust fund at a loss of $14 million. He was also accused of forging documents to obtain a $2 million bank loan. However, on the night that he was indicted on the federal forgery charge he was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident involving George Sturghill, a car-park attendant. Once again, the driving charges were quietly dropped. Meanwhile, he secured an acquittal in the federal case and in 1979 reached a settlement with his half-sisters. Trouble also emerged from Smith's refusal to accept unionisation. He stood his ground when pilots threatened to strike, isolating their leadership and arousing the fears of its members, some of whom declared 'I've got purple blood', a reference to the company's corporate colours. FedEx also suffered difficulties with Zapmail, a loss-making business that involved faxes being sent to a local hub for onward delivery before the widespread use of fax machines in homes and offices, and its acquisition of the rival Flying Tiger Line. Yet its annual income continued to grow, reaching $7.7 billion in 1991 and $87.7 billion in 2024. After Bush's victory over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election Smith was considered for the post of defence secretary, but withdrew on health grounds and the position went instead to Donald Rumsfeld. He declined the post again in 2006 to spend time with his terminally ill daughter. In 2008 he co-chaired John McCain's presidential campaign and a decade later was a pallbearer at McCain's funeral. Smith, who was sometimes described as the biggest celebrity in Memphis since Elvis Presley, played himself in the disaster-survival film Cast Away (2000), welcoming home Tom Hanks's Chuck Noland, a FedEx employee stranded on a tropical island after a cargo aircraft crashed. The scene was filmed at FedEx's home facilities in Memphis. Meanwhile, the company and its founder were the subject of countless business school case studies and several books, including Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator (1993) by Vance Trimble and Changing How the World Does Business (2006) by Roger Frock. However, Smith, who according to Forbes was worth $5.3 billion, had a straightforward explanation for the success of FedEx, telling interviewers: 'It was just like Pogo the Possum [a postwar US comic-strip character] said, 'If you want to be a great leader, find a big parade and run in front of it.'' Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, was born on August 11, 1944. He died from natural causes on June 21, 2025, aged 80
