👋 Good morning! Do you feel it, folks? Do you feel the fall coming down the road? The MLB All-Star Game is over, meaning the next big sports event on the calendar is the launch of NFL training camp. The Cowboys start things up in Oxnard next week, and our Clarence Hill will be there for every day of it. It’s actually, finally, almost here! — Bobby Karalla

Craig Ludwig might never have played in Dallas were it not for Gordon Bombay and Charlie Conway.

That’s right: If The Mighty Ducks had been a mighty flop, the Minnesota North Stars would have moved to Anaheim in the early-1990s instead of Dallas. That was the agreement in place, anyway, until the movie made more than $50 million and the folks at Disney had a great idea to turn the Ducks into a real NHL team.

We’re ranking “what if?” moments all week long here at DLLS, and that’s the wildest one to me about any team. The Mighty Ducks franchise is very special to me, as it probably is to many millennial sports fans. It’s now even more beloved in my eyes knowing that its success is the reason I get to watch hockey more than 80 nights a year.

The DLLS Stars crew dove into their top-10 hypotheticals in team history on Tuesday night’s program, including a whole bunch of other ones involving Hall of Famers, transactions that could’ve been, and those that never were. Check it out! And while you’re at it, Sean Shapiro provided more backstory and insight into some of his favorites.

LeBron James isn’t going to be a Dallas Maverick. By trade, anyway. Probably. Almost definitely, definitely not.

During the last couple days, Twitter has been buzzing about rumors likely created out of thin air by random checkmark fan accounts claiming there’s a trade in place to send LeBron to the Mavs. While it’s certainly possible that any player could be traded to any team at any time for any reason nowadays, I personally have a hard time believing that could happen. National reporters are starting to chime in with their own intel, all either skeptical or outright dismissive of the idea that the Mavs would actually trade the four or more guys it’d take to match LeBron’s $52.6 million salary in a swap.

Our own Marc Stein has reported since the beginning of free agency that while LeBron and the Mavs would have mutual interest should he become a free agent (which I wholeheartedly agree with), there’s virtually no scenario in which the Mavericks would ever trade for him. He likewise believes there’s almost no way the Lakers would buy him out to make him a free agent, either. Just this morning, The Athletic reported James and the Lakers expect to still be together when training camp starts in a couple months.

So maybe this is all coming to an end now. Or maybe not. We’ll see!

Abby Jones has spent the last few days in Atlanta covering all the All-Star festivities. Check out her timeline for all the goods!

Only two weeks remain before the first, juicier MLB trade deadline. The Rangers have some big questions to answer about their future.

But before our guys get to answering those questions on the show, they’re looking back in time! Check out the Rangers’ top-10 “what if?” show tonight at 7 p.m. Central!

ABS is cool, but this felt really anticlimactic. What do you think?

Be sure to subscribe to our shows wherever you listen to your podcasts. Traffic can be the worst, and one of the best ways I get through it is by listening to the audio versions of our DLLS shows. You should, too!

Bobby Karalla
DLLS Sports Head of Content​
[email protected]