samfels27 Page 77 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NHL refs are turning a blind eye to everything again
It used to be that I thought NHL refs, of the four major sports at least, did the best job. Which wasn’t an accolade so much as just not crashing the car in quite such a fireball. Baseball umps make up their own strike zone while daring anyone to argue with them about it. It used to be that NBA refs...

It doesn’t matter what we think if Ben Simmons’ teammates are done with him
I admit that I fell into the trap of using every NBA playoff game as a referendum on the legacy of every NBA star. Things are never that simple, and winning a championship is hard. Especially in the NBA, where it’s an actual referendum on how your team is built. It’s not hockey where the bounces jus...
![UEFA investigates Neuer’s rainbow armband while fascist goons march on Hungary-France match [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/6fe731a4904311ea3e6db7608ffec366.jpg)
UEFA investigates Neuer’s rainbow armband while fascist goons march on Hungary-France match [Updated]
If the whole Super League debacle put people in the very awkward and uncomfortable position of having to side with UEFA, they can feel assured that UEFA was always going to do everything it could to squander that capital. It didn’t take them long....

Hockey isn’t any better at picking its defensive player of the year than basketball
Recently, the discussion in basketball has been Defensive Players Of The Year and just how exactly certain players ended up with that award. As we watched Rudy Gobert stare blankly from the lane at the Clippers as they constantly kicked the ball out to whomever he was supposed to be guarding outside...

The true price of camaraderie and competition
The concept of sports gambling has gotten skewed in the past year. Now that it’s becoming legal in more and more places, you see Allen Iverson or Paige Spiranac in a dress that very well might cause her to cough up her soul (now word on how AI would fit into it) telling you about all the things you ...

Belgium found the turbo button — it wears No. 7
The best you can describe Belgium’s situation as against Denmark was “awkward.” While a good portion of the Belgian squad is personally involved with Christian Eriksen,Thursday’s game was about Danish unity and recovery. This was clearly a catharsis for fans and players in red alike, a group that we...

de Sore-y details
The Mets saw their lives flash before their eyes last night, as Jacob deGrom turned the Cubs into a mush to feed grandpa for three innings, and then abruptly left the game with shoulder soreness. This is after the flexor problems he’d had before, as well as the other nagging issues he’s been dealing...

Doc Rivers’ head coaching days must end
While he won Coach of the Year this year, his second such accolade, it becomes clearer and clearer that Tom Thibodeau’s greatest accomplishment was as assistant head coach: getting those Boston Celtics teams around whatever roadblocks Doc Rivers threw in front of them to win that one championship an...

That’s what Paul Pogba is supposed to be
It’s always difficult analyzing or discussing Paul Pogba. I’ve found myself on both sides of it just in the past year or two. How good was he at Juventus? Isn’t it easier to play when Claudio Marchisio is doing some of your running and Andrea Pirlo is there to spread passes to you? Maybe, but eight ...

Giannis is going to wear this one, no matter how the rest of this series goes
The Bucks might still win this series. Getting harder to see how, as Kyrie Irving could be back for Games 6 and/or 7 and James Harden might actually gain the use of a second leg. And even if neither of those things happen, they still found a way in Game 5. And it’s not that Giannis Antetokounmpo was...

Rüdiger HUNGRY!
I bet, my fellow footyphiles, that we thought we were done with international tournaments including players nibbling on each other, what with Luis Suarez not involved in the European Championships and probably too old for the next World Cup. And Copa America has bigger problems, though I suppose we ...

We’re just gonna rerun our last two headlines about Copa America in Brazil
If you thought having a massive soccer tournament switched to a country governed by a corrupt dickhead in the span of less than two weeks was a really bad idea, well you can pat yourself on the back. You were right. Copa America has been everything we sadly thought it would be and it’s only three da...

This is what happens when you’re always reacting
I’ve remarked numerous times that MLB owners can only see the one dollar right in front of their face instead of the three that might be waiting down the road. Most of the decisions that were just about cashing in now are why baseball’s popularity is currently diving down in a way that DC won’t let ...

Shock of shocks, the story UEFA sold wasn’t the case
Out of the many shocks of Saturday’s Denmark-Finland Euro 2020 game was that the game continued not even two hours after Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field. When it was announced, most couldn’t fathom that either team would be in any kind of state to play. Part of UEFA’s statement — “per the p...

This is why no one cares about media access
Shortly after sports returned from their pandemic-enforced break, all leagues announced that media interactions would not take place in the dressing rooms or clubhouse or on the field while the COVID was still ever-present. Press conferences would be conducted in a Zoom-type fashion, and ever since ...

Man, do the Cubs need to shut up
I’ve documented how on the field, the Chicago Cubs are quickly becoming one of the stories in Major League Baseball. This is a team that had been partially stripped for parts by its owner (even though he’s tried to duck that in recent days like the coward he is), who also left the roster high and dr...

No one wants Novak Djokovic to be the best player ever, but he might be
When discussing tennis history, people’s tastes will always influence and muddy debates about who’s what and the places they hold. Because it’s an individual sport that incorporates so many styles among its players that what one individual prefers watching will always make them lean in one direction...

What’s important, what’s pointless
Nine years ago or so on some blog from a previous life, I wrote much of what’s to follow here when Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the field, much in the same way Christian Eriksen did yesterday. Whenever something like this happens, broadcasters, pundits, anyone forced to comment on things that really ...

Euro 2021: Joachim Löw might wish he left before last call
We all know it’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door. But sometimes you pay even more when you ignore the door that was right there....

Nazem Kadri cost the Avs everything
Hockey is a truly vicious sport, in that the team that wins the Presidents’ Trophy — i.e. the team that is best over the largest sample size — rarely “justifies” that achievement in the playoffs. You have to go all the way back to the Hawks in 2013, another shortened season, to find a team that was ...