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Indeed, Poulakidas gets paid to wear one, a surreal experience for someone whose pro potential was doubted throughout his career at Neuqua Valley and later at Yale. “It’s been a dream come true,” he said. “To see where my hard work has taken me, I want to be an inspiration to all types of kids who might grow up thinking that something could be out of reach for them, for everybody to know that they can shoot for the stars.” Poulakidas, who turned 23 on April 4, went undrafted last year and signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Los Angeles Clippers. “What that means is the team tells you they’re going to bring you into training camp and you’ll get an opportunity at summer league,” he said. “Most likely you’ll get waived and play in the G League with their affiliate. That’s exactly what happened.”
Shams Charania: The Utah Jazz are signing guard Bez Mbeng to a two-year contract, Jason Tranos of @PrioritySports tells ESPN. After two 10-day contracts, the undrafted Yale product lands a full NBA deal.
Jake Fischer: The Utah Jazz are signing Bez Mbeng to a 10-day contract, per sources. The Yale product has spent this 2025-26 season with the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
The 21-year-old’s basketball journey, from Yale to Michigan to Brooklyn, has been a running dialogue between thought and instinct, leading to what coaches sometimes call “analysis paralysis.” Moments when he thinks a little too much for his own good. As he enters his first NBA season, knowing when to silence his thoughts and lean on instinct remains an ongoing lesson. “Someone told me that my biggest strength is also my biggest weakness, and that’s just my brain,” Wolf said.
Anthony Chiang: Heat announces it has waived forward Steve Settle III to add guard Bez Mbeng. Mbeng was named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year three times and played four seasons at Yale. Heat preseason roster still at maximum of 21 players.
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Williams revealed that Yale was his second option, not Harvard, but his decision to attend Tennessee raised concerns within his family, given the academic opportunities he was passing up. He acknowledged that as a young black male in society, opting for a non-Ivy League school wasn’t the conventional choice for academic pursuits. “My mom wasn’t necessarily happy with that, being that I’m a black male in society and I had a chance to go to an Ivy League. It doesn’t necessarily sit well when you say you’re going to Tennessee for academics, but also to play sports,” Williams explained during a conversation with Emily Austin on The Hoop Chat.
As if that weren’t enough to sustain Podoloff’s legacy and memory on Silver’s watch, he was — you should excuse the nearly discarded Pollyanna expression — living proof of the American Dream. Fleeing murderous pogroms in Russia, Podoloff’s Jewish family emigrated to New Haven, Conn. — where Podoloff, in his early teens, learned English and in 1915 earned his law degree from Yale. Along the way to establishing the NBA, he served as commissioner of the American Hockey League, thus a chosen leader of two sports at one time while also serving as a distinguished attorney.
Nets owner Joseph Tsai had already reached his limit, multiple sources told The Athletic, after years of injuries, off-court embarrassments and playoff failures were followed by threats leaked by Irving and Durant during Brooklyn’s contract negotiations with Irving. Tsai, 58, co-founder of Alibaba Group, China’s largest commerce retailer, was born in Taiwan, went to high school in New Jersey, has two degrees and four varsity letters (lacrosse) from Yale and is worth $9 billion, according to Forbes.
Jeff Van Gundy blew his shot with Jodie Foster so badly that he failed to even make an impression. During a recent appearance on “The Dave Pasch Podcast,” Van Gundy reminisced about the time when he and Foster were freshmen at Yale. The former Knicks head coach recalled that during his first year in New Haven, he and 11 other males in his freshman dorm pledged $100 each to a pot, and whoever got the first date with Foster would take home $1,200.
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He loved basketball, both playing and watching his hometown Sonics. He took the craft seriously but he spent most of his free time studying for his LSATs. He applied to the law schools at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale “because he wanted to get into the three best ones,” says Andre Burrell, another former roommate and longtime friend. All three schools accepted Stone. He chose Stanford. From there he landed a job at the New York City-based corporate law firm Dewey Ballantine.
In an hour-long “fireside chat” with Yale students —recorded on September 10 and posted Friday— Joe Tsai says some “very, very emotional conversations” with his players led him to make the commitment he and his wife Clara have made to social justice, including his $50 million Social Justice Fund for Brooklyn announced in August.
Yale has designated three independent laboratories to perform the university-developed SalivaDirect™ COVID-19 test. Along with Yale Pathology Labs — the first to offer the test — Access Medical Laboratories, Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), and Mirimus, Inc., represent the initial wave of providers for the innovative testing method. They will make SalivaDirect™ available to people in Florida, Minnesota and New York by late September.