The Clippers got the heaviest penalty in NBA history, Leonard finally left for Toronto

The saga lasted almost three months and ended exactly as everyone assumed - Kawhi Leonard goes to Toronto, and the Los Angeles Clippers get Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, one pick swap and two second-round picks. The trade was agreed on 30 June but frozen until the league finished its investigation into salary cap circumvention. The penalty is the heaviest the NBA has ever handed down: five consecutive first-round picks from 2029 to 2033, a fine of 30 million dollars and a five-year monitoring programme. Owner Steve Ballmer is suspended for a year, Leonard was fined 700,000 dollars, and his uncle received a five-year ban from any business in the league. When the penalty hurts the club more than the player, who exactly was punished?

The US won a fifth consecutive world title in women's basketball

The final in Berlin started tight and ended as a demonstration. France led by two points at half-time, and then the US played the third quarter 30:12 and the game no longer had a story - a final 97:79. Breanna Stewart finished with a double-double, 22 points and 10 rebounds, and was named the tournament's most valuable player. Her record in a US shirt at world championships now stands at 26 wins and no defeats. That is a fifth gold in a row and a twelfth overall for the Americans, who with one silver and two bronzes have 15 medals at world championships. France's top scorers were Dominique Malonga with 21 points and Gabby Williams with 20 points and seven assists. A rerun of the Olympic final from Paris, the same outcome.

MZT Skopje signed Tadija Tadić, a former Kumanovo point guard

While the NBA argues over millions, MZT Skopje Aerodrom quietly closes its own business. The experienced Serbian point guard Tadija Tadić, who came through the Partizan academy and has appearances for Serbia's youth teams, is officially a new player for the "metalworkers". In the 2024/2025 season he played for Kumanovo, so he already knows the domestic league and will not need half a season to settle in. The club announces him as a reinforcement for domestic and international competition - a formulation that repeats every summer in Skopje. The difference will show when the games start, not in the press release.

Macedonia's runner-up withdrew from ABA 2 and left an empty slot

Basketball club Skopje, which finished last season as runner-up competing under the name Madžari, has withdrawn from the ABA 2 league for the new season. The regional competition's assembly decided the slot should stay empty - there will be no replacement. All of Skopje's scheduled games are cancelled and will not be registered with a forfeit result, and opponents have no obligation to turn up. Group A is now left with three teams playing four games each in a double round-robin: the winner goes straight to the quarter-finals, second and third to the play-in. The ABA league even introduced special comparison rules so that the three-team group would not end up worse off than the others. So the competition adapts, and the Macedonian slot simply disappears. Second place in the country, and still nobody to take it to the regional stage - that is a sentence that says everything about the state of things.

Dončić is the favourite for top scorer, and Dimitrijević came through unscathed

Luka Dončić is the first name on the list of candidates for the NBA scoring title in the 2026/27 season, according to Bleacher Report. The arguments are not small: last season he averaged 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists, before the injury that took the entire play-offs away from him. The Lakers lost LeBron James, reshaped the squad, and Dončić is now the sole centre of gravity. His long-time Slovenia team-mate Edo Murić says this could be his best season: "Every time I see him with the ball, he gets better." Closer to home, Nenad Dimitrijević took an awkward blow in the third quarter of Aris's friendly against Crvena Zvezda, returned in the final quarter and finished the game with at least 10 assists. Aris celebrated 98:74, and Macedonia's best basketball player is in the kind of form that recently produced a triple-double in Vienna.