A NATURE RESERVE NEAR SESTRORETSK, Russia (AP) — It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, many in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog nature reserve.
They serve as crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs, who are trying to navigate toward their spawning sites.
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A volunteer holds a toad at the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A volunteer helps a frog cross the road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A frog sits in the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Frogs safely reach a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Frogs leap to get into the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A volunteer carries frogs across a road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A frog crosses a road to get a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Frogs sit near a road fenced off by volunteers who help them move across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve near St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
There usually isn’t much traffic, but even the relatively low number of vehicles still would kill up to 1,000 toads each year, said Konstantin Milta, senior herpetology researcher with the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute.
“On large highways, the death rate is monstrous. Sometimes the surface of the road can be covered with a layer of dead animals,” Milta told The Associated Press.
On this section, a large reddish-orange sign that features one of the amphibians warns motorists: “Attention! Slow down! Toads are crossing the road.”
When the volunteers find one of the creatures, they pick it up, put it in a plastic bucket and make a record before depositing it in the grass on the other side.
“So cute!” one of the volunteers said, referring to how the toad clung to her pink glove.
In the Sestroretsk Bog reserve, “toads migrate from the forest to the bay in the spring, reproduce in the reed beds in the coastal strip, lay eggs, and then, somewhere in mid-May, they leave the water and migrate back to the forest,” Milta said.
“So they cross this road twice,” he added.
Members of this bucket brigade have been volunteering their time since 2016, said Viktoria Samuta, head of the environmental education section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg.
Depending on the weather, the work begins in mid-April and continues for a month or longer, she said, with more than 700 volunteers take part every year.
Last year, Samuta said, volunteers helped move thousands of specimens.
“It is very good that in recent years there have been more and more people ready to help living beings,” she said. “Our mission is, precisely, to make people love our nature more and more, and be willing to help it.”
Volunteer Diana Kulinichenko called it a nice break from her studies.
“I’ve been whining all semester that I want to go to the forest," Kulinichenko said. "And here’s the forest, the toads, you help the toads, you’re in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I just really want to volunteer, so after this I’ll be looking for where else I can do it.”
A volunteer holds a toad at the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A volunteer helps a frog cross the road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A frog sits in the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Frogs safely reach a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Frogs leap to get into the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A volunteer carries frogs across a road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A frog crosses a road to get a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Frogs sit near a road fenced off by volunteers who help them move across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve near St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
CHICAGO (AP) — The ping-pong balls have spoken: Cooper Flagg might be headed to Dallas to start his NBA career.
And a fan base that lost Luka Doncic this season might have a new star to cheer for.
The Mavericks won the NBA draft lottery on Monday night, giving them the No. 1 pick in next month’s draft — and the first chance to take Flagg, the freshman who led Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season and the consensus player of the year.
A screaming Mark Cuban called new Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont — who was at his daughter's track meet — with the happy news, and just like that, there's something to root for in Dallas again after a tumultuous few months where Doncic got traded and the Mavs missed the playoffs.
“I am so happy for Mavericks fans,” Dallas CEO Rick Welts said, clutching the envelope with the No. 1 emblazoned on it. “I only got to Dallas January 1st this year. February 1st, we broke the internet. I am just amazed at the depth of emotion and connection that the fan base has with this team. And what happened today, I can’t imagine a better day for Mavs fans. It's going to really be something special. I can’t wait to get back to Dallas.”
Dallas bucked huge odds to get it done, with only a 1.8% chance — “a 1.8% chance? Are you kidding me?” Welts said — to win the lottery coming into Monday. A Mavs team that went to the NBA Finals last season, then scorned its fans by trading away Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, left the lottery with the biggest prize.
“I didn’t try to think about it too much,” Flagg said on the broadcast of the lottery about what it’ll likely mean for his immediate future. “It was out of my control.”
If Miami had lost in the play-in tournament, the Heat would have had the odds that the Mavericks ended up having — so if the ping-pong balls bounced the same way, they would have had the No. 1 pick.
“I mean come on man,” Heat forward Kevin Love posted on social media when the lottery winner was announced, presumably his reaction to seeing a No. 1 pick that could have been Miami's go elsewhere.
Instead, it was Dallas' night. And another Texas team nearly stole the show.
San Antonio, with back-to-back rookies of the year in Victor Wembanyama — the prize of the 2023 lottery — and Stephon Castle, will pick second. Philadelphia will pick third, and Charlotte will pick fourth.
“When you jump into the top four again, you put yourself as an organization in a place to make a really big acquisition with a really good player," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "And that’s what we’re going to look forward to doing.”
Flagg averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists while leading Duke to the Final Four in his lone college season. He shot 48% from the field, 39% from 3-point range, 84% from the foul line and was The Associated Press’ national player of the year.
And he’s had success against NBA players already. Last summer, when the U.S. Olympic team was holding its training camp in Las Vegas in advance of the Paris Games — where the Americans won gold yet again — Flagg was part of the select team brought in for scrimmages against the Olympians.
Flagg, who was 17 years old at the time, more than held his own in those workouts.
“I don’t know who we’re going to take, but should we take him, I think his resume is pretty strong,” Welts said. “Every time he’s put in a situation that everyone wondered if he could succeed, he's succeeded and then some.”
Utah will pick fifth, Washington sixth, New Orleans seventh, Brooklyn eighth, Toronto ninth, Houston 10th, Portland 11th, Chicago 12th, Atlanta 13th and San Antonio 14th.
There were 13 teams with a chance to win the No. 1 pick. Utah, Washington and Charlotte had the best odds at 14% each. The Jazz and Wizards got jumped, with San Antonio and Philadelphia moving into the top four.
“This draft is really strong at the top, especially in the top three and we’re very excited," 76ers basketball operations president Daryl Morey said.
For the Jazz, it was the extension of a trend they didn’t want to see continue — in this format, the team that finished the season with the worst record hasn’t won the lottery. Utah was a league-worst 17-65 this season and got the fifth pick, its worst possible lottery outcome.
There were 14 lottery spots but only 13 teams with a chance to win the No. 1 pick because Atlanta’s odds conveyed to San Antonio, essentially meaning the Spurs were in the lottery twice — with a 6% chance of winning on their own, and a 0.7% chance to win with the Hawks’ combinations of ping-pong balls.
This system has been in place since 2019, the latest effort to discourage tanking — the practice where teams aren’t overly interested in winning regular-season games with hopes instead of bettering their chances of winning the No. 1 draft pick.
The teams with the three worst records all have the same chance — 14% — of winning the No. 1 pick, and odds for the remaining lottery teams are gradually reduced from there.
The lottery only sets the order for the first 14 picks in the draft. The rest of the first round — picks 15-30 — was determined by regular-season finish, though some of these picks have been traded many times over the years.
The rest of the first-round order, for now: Oklahoma City at No. 15, Orlando No. 16, Minnesota No. 17, Washington No. 18, Brooklyn No. 19 and Miami No. 20.
From there, the final 10 picks in the first round are owned by Utah (21), Atlanta (22), Indiana (23), Oklahoma City (24), Orlando (25), Brooklyn (26 and 27), Boston (28), Phoenix (29) and the Los Angeles Clippers (30).
AP Sports Writer Andrew Seligman contributed to this report.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba
Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman celebrates after NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced that the Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman, left, and NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, right, pose for photos after Tatum announced that the Mavericks had won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Duke's Kon Knueppel, left, and Cooper Flagg, right, smile at the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announces that the Dallas Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman celebrates after NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced that the Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Dallas Mavericks' Rolando Blackman, left, and NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, right, pose for photos after Tatum announced that the Mavericks had won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Duke's Kon Knueppel, left, and Cooper Flagg, right, smile at the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announces that the Dallas Mavericks won the first pick in the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
FILE - Duke's Cooper Flagg (2) looks back after dunking the ball as Houston's Terrance Arceneaux (23), Mylik Wilson (8) and Milos Uzan (7) watch during the first half in the national semifinals at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, April 5, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
