Basketball Page 945 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Kevin Porter Jr. dodged accountability for far too long
The arrest of Kevin Porter Jr. on charges of felony assault and strangulation related to the beating of his girlfriend Kysre Gondrezic early Monday at the Millenium Hilton in Manhattan. was the last straw for the soon-to-be-former Houston Rocket. Prosecutors say Porter punched Gondrezick with an ope...

Giannis Antetokounmpo continues to throw down the gauntlet when it comes to re-signing with Milwaukee
The 2022-23 season was supposed to be the revenge of the Milwaukee Bucks. Their championship defense in 2022 was cut short when Khris Middleton was injured in the first round against the Chicago Bulls. A season that had already been dampened by Brook Lopez missing all but 13 regular-season games. Gi...

LeBron James, wife and 2 associates named in federal PED investigation
There hasn’t been a performance-enhancing drugs scandal in basketball. At least, not to the level of, say, the likes of BALCO and Major League Baseball. As close as we came was when the NBA started testing players for HGH before the beginning of the 2015-16 season. The trendy thing to do online at t...

The NBA can try all it wants, player rest is impossible to stop
Remember when the Dallas Mavericks concluded an embarrassing 2022-23 season by not dressing Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić instead of attempting to qualify for the Play-in Tournament? The Mavericks were fined $750,000, and I think that the NBA reached a breaking point in its never-ending saga of star-...

LeBron James is Team USA’s shadow GM and possibly its next director
LeBron James is back to doing what he does best, flexing those roster construction muscles as the league’s greatest shadow GM. According to Shams Charania and Joe Vardon’s report in The Athletic, an effort to recruit Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum and Draymond Green, is being...

USA’s FIBA World Cup loss to Germany proves something needs to change before the 2024 Olympics
The Americans will leave this year’s FIBA World Cup without a title....

The Los Angeles Lakers' offseason moves are 2 years too late
The Los Angeles Lakers were able to successfully pivot away from Russell Westbrook, because this roster never really needed Russ. While the intention was right in looking for a third star, the only way adding one would’ve helped is if the team didn’t have to give up a bunch to get one, or if that pl...

Kim Mulkey getting paid is just latest evidence that college sports is alive and well
Locking in Kim Mulkey as a Bayou Bengal for life was always a matter of when, not if, especially coming after leading LSU to a national championship in her second season on campus. No matter what you think of Mulkey off the court — and trust me, there’s plenty to criticize — she’s one heck of a bask...

No man is an island, unless his name is James Harden
James Harden is a walking tragedy. He should be celebrated for his ball-handling alchemy, his mentalist-grade ability to draw fouls from reluctant defenders, and of course, the bird’s nest he’s cultivated for the past decade. Instead, he’s spent most of his career getting in his own way. ...

Dillon Brooks and Luka Dončić take NBA antics international
NBA players can’t help themselves sometimes, even while playing under international rules. Canada played Slovenia in a FIBA World Cup matchup Wednesday morning, with the Canadians coming out on top, 100-89. Multiple NBA players headlined this game — mainly for Team Canada — but once Luka Dončić (Slo...

Breanna Stewart is the heir apparent to Diana Taurasi’s scoring crown
In a sport where offense sells, Breanna Stewart is a closer. On Tuesday night, the New York Liberty needed each and every one of Stewart’s 40 points on a panoply of turnaround fadeaways, driving finishes, post-ups, and off-the-dribble triples to put away the Dallas Wings 94-93. ...

Mark Cuban is the hero America needs (on Xwitter)
Sometimes, in life, you don’t get the hero you want, but you get the hero you need. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks — an organization that has been embroiled in ongoing sexual misconduct allegations for the last several years — is best known for either his role on the wildly popular Shark ...

Team USA must play like this for the rest of the FIBA World Cup
Americans don’t care when Team USA wins non-gold medal games. But they do give a damn if they lose them....

Why have there been so many WNBA broadcasting blunders this season?
Broadcasters in the 2023 WNBA season are mostly pronouncing players’ names right. Considering the frequency with which on-air talent mispronounced players’ names (or misnamed players) in recent years, this is a triumph....

Dennis Schröder wasn’t having any of his FIBA World Cup coach's foolishness
Most NBA players see it as an honor to represent their country in the FIBA World Cup, especially those from outside the United States. These players usually won’t pass up the opportunity to play for the bragging rights of becoming “real” world champions. But like most players today, the old way of c...

Team USA’s lack of size was exploited in men's World Cup loss to Lithuania
The United States Senior Men’s Basketball Team got its feelings hurt on Sunday. In the final game of the 2023 FIBA World Cup Group Stage, they suffered their first international defeat of 2023 with a 110-104 loss to Lithuania....

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gets blunt on Pat Bev Podcast
Say what you will about Dallas Mavericks governor (team owner) Mark Cuban. One thing you’ll never be able to say is that he doesn’t speak his mind. Cuban’s been keeping it a buck in NBA circles for almost a quarter century and shows no signs of slowing down. Recently, Cuban sat down on former NBA de...

Ben Simmons is dreaming of taking his street clothes back to Philly
It’s that time of year when we get these Ben Simmons workout videos where he’s in the gym shooting baskets, lifting weights, knocking down three-point shots, and performing like an actual NBA star. But once the regular season rolls around (if he even plays), he morphs back into the guy who can’t see...

Maybe Noah Lyles was right about the NBA after all
The NBA announced Wednesday morning that the Dallas Mavericks will take on Euro League champions Real Madrid in a preseason exhibition on Oct. 10 in Spain. It isn’t unusual for the NBA to send teams to other countries for games before the start of the regular season, but this announcement’s timing ...

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has taken quite a star turn during the FIBA World Championships
It was a long shot for Jordan to qualify for the second round at the 2023 FIBA World Championships. They are 0-3 through three games and were throttled by USA, 110-62. However, through the defeats a player bloomed. The leading scorer in the FIBA World Cup is, unsurprisingly, Luka Dončić at 30 points...