AllStar

A look at the Los Angeles Times’ All-Star boys’ basketball team for the 2025-26 season:

Brandon McCoy, Sierra Canyon, 6-5, Sr.: The Mission League co-MVP averaged 19.2 points and 7.4 rebounds while helping his team go 30-1 and win Open Divison championships in the Southern Section and state.

Jason Crowe Jr., Inglewood, 6-3, Sr.: The Missouri commit is the state’s all-time scoring leader with 4,718 points and averaged 43.6 points this season to become the first four-time All-Star selection.

Drew Anderson, Santa Margarita, 6-10, Sr.: The Oregon State commit was co-MVP of the Trinity League while averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Joe Sterling, Harvard-Westlake, 6-4, Sr.: The Texas commit has been one of the state’s best three-point shooters, averaging 21.4 points and 5.8 rebounds for the Open Division finalists.

Maxi Adams, Sierra Canyon, 6-8, Sr.: The North Carolina commit averaged 16 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, including 26 points against Harvard-Westlake in the Open Division regional final.

Christian Collins, St. John Bosco, 6-9, Sr.: The McDonald’s All-American and USC commit averaged 25 points, 12 assists and four assists per game.

SJ Madison, Redondo Union, 6-5, Sr.: The Nevada commit and Bay League MVP led the Sea Hawks to a 27-5 record, averaging 18 points and 6.1 rebounds.

Maxwell Scott, Corona del Mar, 6-2, Jr.: The Sunset League MVP averaged 21.7 points after leading his team to a 27-1 regular-season record and averaged 24.5 points in three Open Division games.

Will Conroy Jr., Village Christian, 6-0, Fr.: He burst onto the scene as the best first-year freshman player in the state, averaging 26.7 points.

NaVorro Bowman Jr., Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, 6-3, Jr.: He shared Mission League MVP honors, averaging 22.5 points as one of the top juniors in the state.

PHOENIX — Since his first full season in 2015, Mookie Betts had either been named an All-Star or received votes for most valuable player every year.

That held true until last year. In his sixth season with the Dodgers, Betts posted career lows in batting average (.258), on-base percentage (.326), and on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.732) while playing 148 games at shortstop.

Betts, now 33, believes last year was an outlier and he can get back to his previous form.

“That’s what I expect,” Betts said after making his Cactus League debut Sunday. “I haven’t felt this way in a long time. So, the way I feel now, I’m healthy, my swing’s in a really good spot. My head’s in a really good spot. I haven’t had any bad days in the cage. I haven’t had any bad days [taking batting practice]. Usually by now, I would have taken a thousand swings, trying to fix stuff, trying to get game-ready, and now I’m just cruising. I’m just cruising and I’m ready to go.”

This spring, manager Dave Roberts offered an unequivocal vote of confidence.

“He will be in the MVP conversation this year,” Roberts said. “But again, I think, speaking for Mookie, his main goal is to help us win a championship. So, I think whatever falls out from there, I think that will happen.”

A stomach bug that caused him to lose a considerable amount of weight put Betts behind last spring, and he never quite caught up. Through his first 103 games, he batted .231 with a .302 on-base percentage and .657 OPS. Enduring the longest cold spell of his career, Betts was forced to retool.

“It’s really just going back to what I what I do best, and really just honing in on it,” Betts said. “Instead of trying to fix problems, I was more able to just hone in on what I do best. And kind of groove those patterns instead of trying to fix old habits.”

Betts says in a bizarre way, he enjoyed his season of soul searching.

“I learned a lot about myself,” Betts said. “I learned a lot about how I operate. I was able to get in the right headspace, and sustain the right headspace. And then once I was able to kind of get in the right headspace and stay there, I haven’t been searching, I haven’t been doing anything since I’ve been here outside of just working and preparing.”

Things started to click in late summer. Over his final 47 games, he batted .317 with a .376 on-base percentage and .892 OPS.

It wasn’t the stats that bothered Betts as much as his lack of production through the first four months.

“Once I was able to help the boys, I was fine,” Betts said. But before that, I was really upset, not with the numbers per se, but not being able to help. Not doing my job, carrying my weight. Once I was able to do stuff, especially later on in the season, I was able to just take a step back and say, ‘You did pretty good.’”

Part of the plan for maximizing Betts’ abilities is minimizing his work in camp. Betts was the last healthy position player to appear in a spring game, starting Sunday after sitting for the first nine games. He was back in the lineup Monday, collecting his first hit with a single in three at-bats against the Colorado Rockies.

“It’s intentional,” Roberts said last week. “It’s load management. I wanted Mookie to start a little bit later, as far as not getting into spring training ready to go and kind of use spring training to build up, given it’s six weeks.”