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Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is often imitated, rarely duplicated and never surpassed ... until now. Curry showed some love to a young basketball player who took Curry's "night night" celebration to the next level during a game.

After hitting a jump shot, the kid actually drops to the floor and mimics sleeping in his bed. It was an elevated form of Curry pretending to sleep after sinking a big shot against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.

Curry liked what he saw from the kid.

He wasn't the only one. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James also weighed in, blaming Curry for starting a new trend. James tweeted, "You see what you started" at Curry.

At least one NBA player was not happy about the kid's celebration. Curry's teammate, Andre Iguodala, said he would make the kid run laps for taunting the opponent.

Well, two out of three ain't bad, especially when the two players on the kid's side are two of the best players in the NBA. No disrespect to Iguodala, but if Curry and James are on board with the kid's celebration, that's probably all that matters.

Stephen Curry started a trend with his night night celebration. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

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Stephen Curry, LeBron James react to kid who took 'night night' taunt to next level: 'See what you started' - Yahoo Sports

Pete Alonso is a natural at MLB's Home Run Derby.

The New York Mets' first baseman has won the derby twice in a row and is the favorite at BetMGM to make it a three-peat. He is +155, the shortest odds on the board. No player has ever won three in a row. Ken Griffey Jr., who won in 1994, 1998 and 1999, is the only three-time winner.

There are a few reasons Alonso is good at the event. First, he's a tremendous power hitter. Go figure. He has a repeatable swing that's perfect for the event. Timing and being able to reset quickly is important, and Alonso is masterful at it. He also never seems to tire. He hit 57 homers to win the derby in 2019 and 74 last year (there was no Home Run Derby in 2020), including an incredible 35 in the first round. He basically turns into a home-run hitting metronome.

Another factor is that Alonso really wants to win. It's just a fun exhibition, but it's obvious Alonso really wants the trophy.

There was no point where I thought I was going to lose. Ever, Alonso said last year, according to MLB.com.

While Alonso is seemingly made for Home Run Derby, it's not like he's unbeatable. Right? Maybe we can find a decent value bet on a slow sports betting day.

Here are the odds for the Home Run Derby:

Pete Alonso +155

Kyle Schwarber +325

Juan Soto +600

Ronald Acuna Jr. +700

Julio Rodriguez +900

Corey Seager +1000

Jose Ramirez +1600

Albert Pujols +2200

There are also props on head-to-head matchups, who will hit the longest home run and over/under totals for each player. Gotta get the most out of the one sporting event on Monday's calendar.

I wouldn't mind a bet on any of the three young stars right in the middle: Soto, Acuna or Rodriguez. Rodriguez is having a monster rookie season for the Seattle Mariners and has plenty of power, and has the youthful energy to maintain a winning pace for the entire event. Soto and Acuna also have endless power and youthful enthusiasm.

I'll take a shot on Schwarber at a little longer than 3-to-1 odds. He was on fire for most of June, has tremendous power and came up just short in 2018, losing by one homer to future Philadelphia Phillies teammate Bryce Harper in the final round. He has ridiculous power and can match Alonso homer for homer.

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Or maybe he can't. Maybe nobody can. Alonso might become a one-man dynasty in Home Run Derby. it seems he'd like that.

Pete Alonso of the New York Mets is going for his third Home Run Derby title in a row. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)

Here's a first look at the sports betting slate for Monday:

Yeah. I know.

Nope.

The beauty of BetMGM's menu is there's always something to bet on. You can bet tennis, international soccer, get on the table tennis bandwagon ... you just might not be able to watch any of it. And you might know nothing about what you're betting on. It's the driest week of betting in the entire year. Thanks a lot for that November/December World Cup, FIFA.

Unless I'm taking Montenegro as a 1.5-point favorite in that under-20 European Championship basketball game against Germany, let's say Schwarber. Hurry up, football.

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The Daily Sweat: Can anyone knock off Pete Alonso in the Home Run Derby? - Yahoo Sports

Russian President Vladimir Putin championed domestic reform and international integration when he first took power in 2000.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Russia once had ambitions for Moscow to be an international financial center.

But its annexation of Crimea in 2014 unleashed a rash of sanctions and curbed foreign investments.

Russia's now cut off from the international community, which is crucial in building a knowledge economy.

It was only a decade or so ago that Russia was working towards its grand ambition of making Moscow a global financial hub.

At a 2010 conference in St. Petersburg, then-President Dmitry Medvedev said the country's interest in becoming a global financial center was "obvious," the BBC reported at the time. Russia needs "a developed and globally competitive national financial system" to modernize the economy, Medvedev said.

"The Kremlin was advancing a lot of efforts to make Moscow an international financial center," said Hassan Malik, a senior sovereign analyst at Loomis Sayles, a Boston-based investment management consultancy.

"Various Russian politicians, including Putin, talked about making Russia an international financial center for years," Malik, who lived in Russia from 2005 to 2008, added to Insider.

Over the next 10 years, Russia started to lay the groundwork for its vision. There were official efforts to elevate the profiles of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the Kremlin pushed to make the ruble a global reserve currency, Malik said.

As a large and resource-rich economy, Russia despite its risks was an attractive investment destination. Global financial powerhouses such Goldman Sachs and Citibank set up shop in Moscow. The Big 4 accounting firms PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte were also in the country.

But Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have thrown its financial hub ambitions into peril.

In the months since the invasion, countries have slapped Russia with sweeping sanctions. Major banks and international financial institutions have pulled out of the country en masse. The big 4 accounting firms have all pulled out of Russia or begun the steps to do so, as have Goldman and Citibank. What's more, the war has not only jeopardized Moscow's standing as a finance hub: It also marks a reversal from Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts early in his reign to modernize the economy.

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Russia's economy wasn't always moving backward.

When Putin first came to power as Russia's president from 2000 to 2008, he advocated for reforms and modernization, wrote Anders slund, an economist and a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum, a think tank. At the time, Putin "often championed sensible reforms while promoting initiatives to modernize and diversify the Russian economy," slund wrote on the Atlantic Council's blog on June 13. Among his major reforms were tax reform and cutting red tape for the setup of small and medium enterprises.

Putin managed to complete all the progressive economic reforms started in the 1990s by the administration of Boris Yeltsin, who served as Russia's first president after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, slund added. Putin also championed far-reaching international integration of Russia, pushing for the country's membership into the World Trade Organization, slund noted.

"These policies paid dividends. Russia enjoyed a period of uniquely strong economic expansion during the early years of the Putin era, with annual growth rates of around seven percent from 1999 to 2008," wrote slund.

Foreign direct investments, or FDI, into Russia rose steadily in the 2000s up until the Global Financial Crisis, when they slumped, according to World Bank data. After the recession, FDI into the country resumed a general trend upwards from 2009 until Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, prompting a raft of US and EU sanctions.

Even after the annexation of Crimea, Russia continued to push ahead with its financial ambitions: The Moscow Exchange that was set up in 2011 continues trading today. The country's top central banker, Elvira Nabiullina who has been helming the institution since 2013 was well-respected by her peers and named by several trade publications, including Euromoney in 2015, as the world's best monetary policymaker.

By the time Putin began his second presidency in 2012, he had "already begun embracing isolationist policies, protectionism, and import substitution," slund said.

Today, Russia is all but an international pariah, with global financial institutions withdrawing from the market left, right, and center due to sanctions.

In March, just days after the invasion, TheCityUK a prominent industry group tore up a memorandum of understanding with Russia that supported Moscow's path to becoming an international financial center.

In the 100 days since it was founded, a US-backed global task force has blocked and frozen more than $330 billion in assets belonging to sanctioned Russians and the country's central banks.

At least tens of thousands of jobs have been impacted the Big Four accounting firms employ about 15,000 staff collectively, while Western banks employ about 40,000 staff, according to the Financial Times.

Despite the exits, unemployment in Russia has been steady as foreign companies are leaving in an orderly fashion, and as the Kremlin has been trying to preserve employment through implicit pressure on employers a tactic Putin's regime has been using throughout the years, said Malik. This has contributed to a flurry of deals involving foreign companies selling their businesses and stakes in their Russian operations to local buyers who would continue running them under a different brand.

Russia is seeking to turn inward to weather current sanctions, but it'll be challenging for the country to make inroads into the big league of knowledge economies, experts say.

"A knowledge economy depends on interacting with the cutting edge of whatever field you're in which means international interactions," Malik said.

Russia's economyis expected to shrink 8.5% in 2022, with a further decline of 2.3% in 2023, theInternational Monetary Fund projected in an April report. That would be the economy's largest decline since the years following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"The 2014 invasion of Ukraine dealt a serious blow to even what equivocal progress there had been until then, and after the events of recent months, it is difficult for me to see how Russia will emerge as a global financial center in the foreseeable future," said Malik.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Russia once had ambitions of making Moscow an international finance hub. Putin's war has crushed the dream. - Yahoo Finance

The final round of the final men's major of 2022 is here, and it promises to be a spectacular one. Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland are tied for the lead at the British Open, both standing at -16 as Sunday begins at St. Andrews. Four strokes behind them are Cam Smith and Cameron Young, the leaders on Saturday who suffered through similar struggles as the rest of the field was surging. Si Woo Kim, Scottie Scheffler and Dustin Johnson are lurking, but no one else is within six strokes of the leaders.

McIlroy is aiming to break an eight-year major drought, and a victory this week at St. Andrews would be one of the most popular in recent golf history. Hovland, one of the game's best young stars, would ascend to the next level with his first major, but the crowd in Scotland is firmly behind McIlroy. The challenge, and the opportunity, of a lifetime awaits.

To check out the current leaderboard, go here.

Follow along with Yahoo Sports as we bring you all the action from the final day of the Open Championship.

Further British Open reading:

The Claret Jug awaits the winner of the British Open. (Ross Parker/SNS Group via Getty Images)

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2022 British Open live updates: Cam Smith captures the Claret Jug - Yahoo Sports

Weeks after Washington Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said 23-year-old megastar Juan Soto would not be dealt amid a rebuild, word leaked out that the trade winds had changed. The reasoning? Soto reportedly rejected a 15-year, $440 million extension offer.

The number is undoubtedly large at first glance, but it shrinks the longer you look at it.

For one, Soto is two-and-a-half years from needing to make this decision. The earliest he can become a free agent is after the 2024 season. Hes making $17.1 million through arbitration in 2022, and that number will escalate as he continues racking up stellar seasons, to the point where he could make $40 million to $50 million total in his remaining two years under team control. Think about why a 31-63 team is so eager to commit $440 million. Its not because they need to shore up a championship run.

What theyre offering him is 13 years and $400 million, roughly, to forfeit his chance to spark a bidding war that would likely take him closer to $500 million or even over it. Theyre offering him an average annual salary of less than $30 million, less than what Nolan Arenado, Francisco Lindor and Corey Seager signed for when they were both older and less productive than Soto.

Theyre also asking him to forfeit the information he would gain over the next two-and-a-half years namely, whether the Nationals steep decline after the 2019 World Series triumph is going to produce a similar upswing.

The news that a Soto deal was possible propelled a daydream hypothetical out into the world as real, if not realistic, conversations. Fans started ticking off the prospects they would be willing to deal for a player whose offensive prowess since he debuted at age 19 has been bested only by Mike Trout and Yordan Alvarez and Soto has played hundreds more games than either of them over that span.

Between Tuesdays All-Star Game and the Aug. 2 trade deadline, the question will be posted over and over: What could make trading Soto worth it?

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The Nationals apparent pivot smacks of a team that is now willing to answer that question with a dollar figure instead of the prospect packages floating around Twitter. The Lerner family, the owners of the Nationals, has said it is exploring a sale. Rizzo, the GM, is not signed long term. That this news came out right before Soto faced a horde of reporters at the Midsummer Classic is certainly suspicious, a move to try to frame him as the bad guy in all this. His agent, Scott Boras, said Monday afternoon that the uncertainty makes it harder for Soto to commit to the team two-and-a-half seasons before the decision is required.

You have no idea of their intentions, Boras said of the future ownership group. Are they going to be in a rebuild for five years or are they going to immediately win? You have no way of knowing. The Lerners are a respected, winning ownership family. It was very easy to always deal with them because you knew who they were and what their intentions were. And now that they're passing that baton on to another ownership group, you really don't know until you find out and obviously that has a big impact on decision making.

But Sotos posture betrayal and confusion over why this needed to happen now would be a good one for fans to take, too.

Washington Nationals' Juan Soto takes batting practice a day before the 2022 MLB All-Star baseball game, Monday, July 18, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Between 2019 and 2020, the Nationals committed $385 million to a duo of pitchers Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin who have barely pitched and pitched poorly, respectively. In that same window, the team let Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon walk away. At last years trade deadline it dealt Max Scherzer and a year-and-a-half of Trea Turner for prospects good prospects, but prospects.

When players as good as Juan Soto have been dealt in recent years, they have never changed teams alone. They have left town alongside expensive players, almost always pitchers, whose contracts no longer feel worth it to the teams. Any Soto deal would almost inevitably begin with a teams willingness to take on Corbin or Strasburg. Thats a lot of money to commit to, which means the talks wont be driven by finding the most talented possible group of young players to return the Nationals to prominence, but by finding a team that can handle the financials.

Really, if the Nationals envision winning any time in the next decade, Juan Soto is just about the most surefire player in baseball to help with that. Moving him now two whole years ahead of the timeline where the Boston Red Sox pulled the trigger on a money-driven Mookie Betts deal, a year-and-a-half before Cleveland did the same on the Francisco Lindor trade is to get a whole bunch of money off the books.

So what would make a Soto trade worth it? Well, it depends on whether you sign checks for the Washington Nationals or buy tickets from them.

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What sort of Juan Soto trade would be worth it? - Yahoo Sports

Following Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's wedding over the weekend, a vintage clip of the Marry Me actress who is now officially Jennifer Affleck in which she reveals plans to change her name to that during their first engagement, has resurfaced.

In the 2003 footage, when Access Hollywood's Pat O'Brien asks Lopez what her name will be a week after her then-planned wedding, she doesn't hesitate.

"Jennifer Lopez," she says, confirming that she planned to keep her name professionally. "But my name will be Jennifer Affleck, obviously."

The new moniker would also be on her personal stationery, she said.

Still, she joked, "J. Aff... doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

The couple nicknamed Bennifer famously ended up postponing their wedding back then because of "excessive media attention," before calling it off altogether in 2004. They, of course, reunited last year and announced in April that they were engaged for the second time.

Following their ceremony Saturday at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Lopez shared an announcement in the latest edition of her On the JLo newsletter, which she signed "Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck." Their marriage license, listed on the Clark County Clerk's Office website, confirms that her new name is "Jennifer Affleck."

In the same note, she gave details about the nuptials, including the fact that her kids Max and Emme, the 14-year-old twins she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony were there to watch as she and the Argo director and star exchanged vows.

"We barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight," she wrote. "They graciously stayed open late a few minutes, let us take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible, evidently once used by the king himself (but if we wanted Elvis himself to show, that cost extra and he was in bed)."

Lopez was ecstatic about the no-frills ceremony.

"They were right when they said, 'all you need is love,' We are so grateful to have that in abundance, a new wonderful family of five amazing children and a life that we have never had more reason to look forward to," she wrote, referring to Affleck's three children 16-year-old Violet, 13-year-old Seraphina and Samuel, 10 with ex-wife Jennifer Garner. "Stick around long enough and maybe you'll find the best moment of your life in a drive-through in Las Vegas at 12:30 in the morning in the Tunnel of Love drive-through, with your kids and the one you'll spend forever with. Love is a great thing, maybe the best of things-and worth waiting for."

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Jennifer Lopez says she'll take Ben Affleck's name in resurfaced 2003 clip and it's finally happened - Yahoo Entertainment

Chris Sale returned to the mound last week for his first start since 2021. Now he's headed for another injury layoff.

The Boston Red Sox pitcher left Sunday's game against the New York Yankees after getting hit with a line drive on his pitching hand. The injury took place in the bottom of the first inning with New York leading, 2-0. Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks hit a comebacker off a changeup that hit Sale on his left hand and bounced into shallow right field.

Sale immediately walked off the mound and held up his hand to show a mangled pinky. He walked into the dugout and didn't return to the game. The Red Sox later announced that he fractured his finger. They didn't offer a timeline for his return. Sale told reporters that he believes that he'll pitch again this season. He's scheduled to see a specialist in Boston.

Sale, a seven-time All-Star, made his first start of the season on July 12 after being sidelined with a stress fracture in his right rib cage that was diagnosed in March. He pitched five scoreless innings against the Tampa Bay Rays in his return before being charged with two earned runs in 2/3 of an inning in Sunday's 13-2 loss.

Prior to his rib injury, Sale missed the entire 2020 season and most of 2021 following Tommy John surgery. The 33-year-old has been Boston's ace when healthy and helped the Red Sox to victory in the 2018 World Series, where he recorded the final outs of the decisive Game 5 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He's in the third year of a five-year, $145 million contract extension he signed in 2019. Injuries have limited him to 11 starts during the extension that runs through 2024.

Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale walks off the mound after a hand injury during the second inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Sunday, July 17, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

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Chris Sale hit by line drive, fractures pinky on pitching hand in second game back from injury - Yahoo Sports

One trend this earning season in the semiconductor industry has sparked murmurs of gluts at least in some parts of the industry.

The results from companies like Micron (MU) to Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) have led analysts to wonder if chip companies may be facing a so-called toilet paper moment in the coming months. Chip demand has slowed due to global economic downturn after a year when these companies did everything they could to ramp up production.

However, a close observer of the industry in Washington says she isnt worried. When asked about about the concerns on Friday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo crisply responded, No, of all the things I worry about, that's not what I worry about.

Demand is just going to continue to rise, she added about the long-term outlook during the Yahoo Finance Presents conversation this week with Julie Hyman.

An Intel chip is displayed at a news conference in 2020. (REUTERS/Steve Marcus)

Raimondo is currently in the midst of talks with lawmakers to deliver new subsidies to the semiconductor industry that are expressly designed to expand supply further in the years ahead. The bill would encourage companies to build new factories and make semiconductors inside the United States. If passed, around $52 billion would be earmarked for American companies like Intel (INTC), who is looking to build in Ohio, to foreign companies like GlobalWafers, who are eyeing a new facility in Texas.

The Commerce secretary promised during Fridays conversation that President Biden would be able to sign the long-delayed bill this summer

But even as legislation would goose supply closer to the end of the decade, many observers of the industry are more focused on the coming year.

Taiwan Semiconductor recently came out with earnings that showed resilient chip sales but the company was nevertheless reviewing their capital expansion plans in anticipation of a possible slowdown.

Similarly this week, Goldman Sachs cut its 2023 earnings forecast for chipmakers by an average of 20% because of similar concerns. Additionally, Micron directly told their investors last month they were concerned about a glut of chips and would reduce production.

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The divergence in outlooks is largely between short and long term expectations.

Daniel Clifton, head of Washington research at Strategas, appeared on Yahoo Finance this week and reminded of semiconductors that people call it the new oil adding that if a nation can control oil and chips, you start to control the production of just about anything that's going to happen in the economy and we could see that that's where the long-term trend is.

Raimondo predicts a rise of 20 to 25% in overall demand in the next three years.

There are thousands of kinds of chips and different products and such, so it may be that demand in certain areas goes down and demand in other areas goes up, she acknowledged but the larger picture is that pretty much every company in the world is now closely linked to the digital economy and you need semiconductors for every technology and anything that's digitized.

Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

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Commerce secretary on future of chips: 'Demand is just going to continue to rise' - Yahoo Finance

Fox Sports made a bizarre choice for a Baseball Night in America graphic. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The biggest misstep of Saturday's New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox didn't come on the field.

Broadcaster Fox Sports saw a swift backlash during the game, part of its Baseball Night in America telecast, after it came out of a commercial break with a graphic depicting the two rivals' logos overlaid onto the reflecting pools of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Any nationally televised Yankees game is going to see a number of New York City establishing shots, but it's not hard to see why many felt this was in bad taste:

The reflecting pools sit on the former sites of the World Trade Center and feature the names of 2,983 victims, including first responders, flight passengers and World Trade Center workers, inscribed on their side walls.

Fox Sports would soon issue an apology Sunday afternoon, saying that they exercised "poor judgment" in airing the graphic.

During last nights telecast, we used poor judgment on the use of a graphic," a spokesperson for Fox Sports wrote in a statement. "We sincerely apologize and regret the decision.

While the backlash grew, the Yankees proceeded to register a one-sided win, defeating the Red Sox 14-1 to improve their record to an MLB-best 63-28. They now lead the AL East by 13 games, the largest division lead in baseball.

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Fox Sports apologizes for overlaying Yankees and Red Sox logos on World Trade Center site - Yahoo Sports

Comedian Craig Robinson's performance on Saturday evening was canceled after a gunman opened fire at the North Carolina comedy club where he was about to perform.

In an Instagram Live video that clocked in at over five-and-a-half minutes, the Killing It star chronicled the events as he moved from the scene into the neighboring concert.

"I'm performing at The Comedy Zone in Charlotte, N.C.. There was an active shooter in the comedy club," Robinson said. "So they moved us over ... there's a concert going on, and it's Big Time Rush, so I thought I would share it with y'all. But yeah. Hello, everybody."

Robinson went on to repeat, "Again, there was an active shooter at the club I was at."

As The Office star left the scene of the shooting, he described the setting to his followers.

"We had to run over here to this concert," said Robinson, before turning the camera and showing the celebratory concert scene to his followers. "That's Big Time Rush, y'all. Big Time Rush! Big Time Rush to the rescue."

Robinson also shared that he was safe after the incident.

"I'm cool. I'm safe. It was just wild. I was in the green room and they were like, 'Everybody get up,'" he shared. "It was wild. It was a moment for sure."

Later, he thanked his followers who were watching the incident unfold on Instagram Live.

"Thank y'all, I appreciate the love," Robinson shared, before blowing a kiss and waving to the camera. In the background, he can be heard talking to a guest who tells him "they got him," evidently referring to the alleged shooter.

Local news station WSOC-TV confirmed a suspect had been apprehended, and police were working to determine why he entered the scene.

In a post on the Atlas One app, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released a statement late Saturday evening.

"Shortly after 9 p.m., a male suspect entered an establishment at the 900 block of NC Music Factory Boulevard. He brandished a firearm inside the business, which was quickly evacuated. The suspect then discharged his weapon. There were no injuries and the suspect was taken into custody. More information will be released by public affairs," the statement read.

Yahoo Entertainment reached out to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department but did not receive a response by press time.

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Craig Robinson reacts to comedy show being canceled after gunman opens fire in the club - Yahoo Entertainment