Greg Cote’s Hot Button Top 10: Messi countdown builds, stakes on Lillard, WNBA back in Miami & more

GREG COTE’S HOT BUTTON TOP 10 (JULY 9): WHAT IN SPORTS HAS GRABBED US LATELY: Our Sunday Hot Button Top 10 feature --back after two weeks off on vacation -- had been blog-only, but with our blog now retired it moved, re-imagined, to online-only. HB10 means what’s on our minds, locally and nationally, but from a Miami perspective and accentuating stuff that’s major, offbeat, damnable, funny or worth needling as the sports week just past pivots to the week ahead. Welcome to the 22nd edition of the new HB10:

1. INTER MIAMI: Messi countdown 12 days as adidas teases new kit: The first images of Lionel Messi wearing No. 10 in pink in an Inter Miami kit emerged this week in the main windows of an adidas store in New York’s SoHo neighborhood with the slogan, “Impossible is coming.” Messi, seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, is coming to America this summer and expected to make his Inter Miami debut July 21 in Fort Lauderdale in a Leagues Cup match vs. Mexico’s Cruz Azul. Meantime former Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jodi Alba will join Messi in turning Inter Miami into Barca East. The team is scrambling to add 3,000 seats to a stadium that still will be frightfully small to accommodate demand for Messi.

2. WNBA: Is Miami hosting new offseason league a precursor to WNBA return?: New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart and Minnesota Lynx player Napheesa Collier have plans to start a new privately funded women’s basketball league based in Miami to give top WNBA players an option to play domestically in the offseason beginning in 2024. Called Unrivaled, the league is planned for January through March with 30 top players on six teams and a 3-on-3 and 1-on-1 format. Two thoughts: 1) A good idea that has echoes of Brittney Griner spending 18 months in Russian detention. Top women’s stars should not have to play overseas to augment a too-small WNBA pay scale. 2) The Miami Sol was an early WNBA team in 2000-02 before folding. Let’s hope the new league based here kick-starts interest in the league returning to South Florida.

3. HEAT: As Lillard pursuit waits, stakes are huge for Miami, Riley: Pat Riley’s epic NBA career and accomplishment make his resume’ beyond any need for vindication (as I write in this column), yet Miami closing the deal to trade for Portland star Damian Lillard holds huge stakes for both the Heat and its president. Miami is all-in on Lillard and losing him to another team, let alone the pursuing East-rival, Celltics or 76ers, would be devastating. It also would be a personal blow to Riley, who, at 78, is under fire from some fans for failing in recent years to close deals on sought-after free agents. The stakes on Lillard: A last hurrah and likely a final championship shot for Riley.

4. MARLINS/MLB: Arraez, Soler heading west as Seattle primps for All-Star Week: Miami is surprisingly good and playoff-hunting and sends .400-chasing Luis Arraez and slugger Jorge Soler out west to rep the Marlins as baseball’s All-Star Week hits Seattle and the city cleanses itself for some 400,000 expected visitors. The host’s ballpark-adjacent SODO neighborhood has rousted a large cluster of rogue RVs that served as something of a homeless encampment on wheels -- “RV remediation,” they call it -- and also painted over graffiti. Super Bowl hosts do this, too. Hide the urban decay ... at least until the cameras and tourists leave.

5. NBA: Wembanyama’s first controversy as pro not one you’d have predicted: You’d have gotten terrific odds on San Antonio Spurs No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Victor Wembanyama’s first controversy as a pro athlete involving ... Britney Spears!? She allegedly was assaulted in Las Vegas by a member of the French phenom’s security team who is said to have backhanded her in the face as she approached the 19-year-old for a selfie, reported TMZ. The aging pop star, 41, filed a .police report, although a review of video found Spears accidentally knocked off her own glasses when her arm was pushed away and no charges will be filed.

6. DUMB SPORTS: Why do we care how many hot dogs Joey Chestnut eats?: Little is more predictable (or boring) in sports (or not-really-sports) than the Chestnut dude once again winning an annual hot dog-eating contest that wraps itself in the July 4 flag but stands for nothing but Nathan’s promoting its product and Chestnut sustaining his ridiculous niche of absurdist celebrity. This time the professional glutton wolfed down 62 dogs in 10 minutes. But he actually ate zero hot dogs. A hot dog is a tube of meat inside a split bun (grilled and with mustard, ideally). When you inhale the tube separate from swallowing a bun soaked in water for quicker digestion, you are not “eating a hot dog.” Fraud!

7. TENNIS: Fittingly quaint protest visits Wimbledon: In an ugly age of mass shootings and the vilest lack of decorum in even our discourse, Wimbledon at its midpoint saw a protest quaint in its small scale and throwback feel. Three older protesters wearing T-shirts from the environmental group Just Stop Oil were escorted off the court for urging the British government to halt new oil, gas and coal projects. This they did by scattering the court with ... confetti and puzzle pieces! Fun! I’d have not arrested these old-school civil disobedients. I’d have credited their whimsy and sent them on their way with a smile and a free strawberries ‘n cream. Also fittingly at Wimbledon this week, chair umpires are politelly reminding patrons to not pop their champagne bottles as players are serving.

8. MONEY: Brady out $30 million. Do we feel bad for him?: Tom Brady lost $30 million, sort of, in the FTX cryptocurrency collapse. To be the company’s “ambassador” he’d been given 30M in now-worthless stock. Brady, the retired seven-time Super Bowl champ, still faces legal trouble as FTX investors are suing celebrity endorsers. FTX filed for bankruptcy last November and federal fraud-related changes confront the former CEO with the erfect name: Sam Bankman-Fried.

8. HEAT: Team nixes planned McGregor partnership: Page Six reported Miami scrapped plans to make Conor McGregor’s pain spray the “official pain relief partner” of the Heat in the wake of an allegation against him following an ill-fated arena appearance during Game 4 of the NBA Finals. A woman is suing McGregor, accusing him of sexually assaulting her in an arena bathroom that night and offering $100,000 in hush money in a mess that also finds the Heat potentially liable. McGregor, fading MMA star, denies the accusations.

9. MLB: Shh. The baseball draft is Sunday: Doesn’t get nearly the attention of the NFL, NBA or even NHL drafts, but the annual MLB talent claim is Sunday with ESPN’s last mock pegging LSU pitcher Paul Skrenes to Pittsburgh No. 1 overall and possibly being stalked by Britney Spears. Miami Marlins pick 10th and ESPN’s guess for the Fish is TCU 3B Brayden Taylor. Likely first-rounders from South Florida include Miami Hurricanes 3B Yohandy Morales, FAU 1B Nolan Schanuel and Miami Gulliver Prep SS George Lombard Jr..

10. CYCLING: Tour de France is on, but does America care?: We’re one-third through the Tour de France, and the world’s most prestigious cycling race has survived the Lance Armstrong/doping era, cleaned itself up and this year will draw more than 15 million spectators and some 2 billion TV viewers worldwide, mostly in Europe. But U.S. viewership is stuck in the 400,000 range per stage. Not to be a jingoist and make it all about ‘Merica, but the U.S. market is one to conquer or at least explore. Formula One racing is trying it, and successfully. Cycling should do the same.

Other most recent stuff from me: Marlins learning that winning is no quick fix for lousy attendance / Heat’s Riley gets elusive last hurrah (and last laugh) if he closes deal on Lillard / Previous HB10 / And my latest podcast: