Basketball Page 859 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Champagne Papi vs Montrezl Harrell: Who wants the smoke?
Former L.A. Laker and Clipper Montrezl Harrell completely showed out in his debut with the Washington Wizards Wednesday night — but not just in the context of the game. Harrell scored 22 points and grabbed 9 rebounds in the Wizards’ 98-93 victory over the Toronto Raptors. But it was Harrell’s intera...

Creighton lost a top recruit after coach’s ‘plantation’ plea — now he’s at Kentucky with an NIL Porsche deal!
Greg McDermott was “this close” to signing TyTy Washington — arguably the highest-ranked recruit in the history of Creighton basketball — last season in a year in which he was coaching a Top-25 team. But then, he just had to mess it all up by saying something super racist:...

Who’s the weird-ass video game rendering now, chumps?
Night two of the NBA season came through strong, delivering a double-overtime thriller where the New York Knicks bested the Boston Celtics, 138-134, in front of the home crowd at Madison Square Garden. This night was supposed to be about the return of NYC’s own Kemba Walker, but by the end of the ni...

Kyrie Irving only cares about Kyrie Irving
Kyrie Irving has been the talk of the town around sports and entertainment circles for his stance against the COVID-19 vaccination. Irving continues to display an extreme lack of self-awareness and overvalued self-importance. Just days after Irving posted a video where he spoke about his decision to...

Warriors fire warning shot to NBA by laying smack down on Lakers
The NBA season officially began Tuesday night with a doubleheader, and in the main event, the hoops world was treated to a showdown between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers. One thing I took away from the season opener is what I’ve been saying all along. The Warriors will contend...

Bucks/Nets is still NBA’s best David vs. Goliath storyline these days… only David has a ring now
It was déjà vu in Milwaukee last night as the Bucks took on the Brooklyn Nets in their season opener — a team they had last faced in a Game 7 overtime thriller in the Eastern Conference Semifinals just a few months earlier. In that one, memorably, the Bucks were saved from a loss by none other than ...

Daryl Morey — not Ben Simmons or Doc Rivers — should be getting the blame in Philadelphia
If there was a scouting report on Daryl Morey, under strengths it would read — “uncanny ability to never get blamed for creating disasters.”...

Deandre Ayton — and Suns fans — deserve better
Usually, opening day is met with optimism. Teams have yet to get blown out by 50, lose a key player to injury, or quit on a coach. (Well, except for that Ben Simmons situation.)...

KAT’s new icky pre-game ritual has Harambe rolling in his grave
Well, that’s one way to get your head in the game. Earlier today, Minnesota Timberwolves’ center Karl-Anthony Towns said his new pregame ritual to get him pumped up before games is to watch videos of gorillas… fighting to the death?! ...

Ben Simmons is going full James Harden, which you should never do if you don't actually shoot the ball
For those who saw clips from the Philadelphia 76ers practice on Monday, it would have been reasonable to draw the conclusion that guard/forward Ben Simmons didn’t want to be there. One picture showed him practicing with his phone in his sweatpants pocket, and in a viral clip he was dribbling a baske...

Tyrese Haliburton would like you to care about his team
The NBA’s opening night is upon us, and one of the great things about that is all 30 teams have hope and high expectations for themselves. Every NBA fan base across the nation can say this might be their team’s year. All those hopes and dreams are still in play until a player like Tyrese Haliburton ...

This NBA-<i>Succession</i> mashup will have you from the opening piano chord
Rise and shine, it’s NBA day....

Success won’t be so easy for the Utah Jazz this time around
The NBA is back, and the Western Conference is looking even more stacked than last year. The glamour division of the Pacific looks to be the standout of the association, with a strong possibility of sending four teams to the postseason. The second-best division in the west this year will be the Nort...

If anybody in the Pacific is going to disappoint, it’s Golden State
We here at Deadspin sometimes have differing opinions. That might be hard to believe, but it’s true, and as we get closer to the start of the NBA season, many of us have conflicting ideas on how the season will play out. For example, my co-worker Criss Partee believes that with a healthy Klay Thomps...

Did you know that L.A. County wants Vanessa Bryant to take a psych exam?
In a few hours, the highly anticipated 2020-2021 NBA season will begin, and Ernie, Chuck, Kenny, and Shaq – a cop and Kobe Bryant’s former teammate – will be broadcasting live from Los Angeles – in the same place where the county is putting Bryant’s widow in a peculiar position....

Get ready, because the Mavericks are going to let you down big time this season
“They” said Dallas won the Trae Young/Luka Dončić 2018 Draft day trade. Yet, “they,” and everybody else, are still waiting on Dončić to win a playoff series, as Young was a twisted ankle away from playing in the NBA Finals....

Assuming LeBron James wants to win a fifth championship (duh), it will take less effort from him instead of more
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James has played a combined 61,090 combined regular season and playoff minutes, per Basketball-reference.com data. That is just 1,669 total minutes less than Hall of Fame forward Karl Malone and 5,207 minutes less than Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the tw...

Ime Udoka announces his presence with authority
Boston Celtics first-year head coach Ime Udoka isn’t wasting any time making his mark on this team. During Boston’s preseason finale against the Miami Heat, forward Grant Williams decided to argue a foul call with an official, allowing the Heat’s Bam Adebayo to beat him back down the court for an ea...

The WNBA just finished a legendary season — now they have to address the drama the Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury created
What if I told you that a hometown kid would come home and help deliver a championship to their city — for a franchise that has never won a championship — against the very same team that prevented that hometown team from winning a title seven years ago?...

2021 NBA Central Division Preview: Woe is the Cleveland Cavaliers
This is a hard division to diagnose. But I believe of all the possible letdowns in the Central, the Cavaliers are most likely to disappoint....