Locker Page 79 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Bradley Beal’s path to winning with Washington is unclear at best, but he wants to stay
Bradley Beal is obviously to be commended for his patience, his loyalty, his character, and even his stubbornness. His stubbornness — in a noble way — is how we’ve arrived here, to begin with. But it’s also keeping him from winning in the immediate future. ...

LaMelo Ball makes critics look silly with runaway Rookie of the Year bid
The fear was that LaMelo Ball’s once loud and now apparently mute father, LaVar, would be overbearing. That his seemingly reckless style of play in high school and overseas would make him an awful NBA teammate. That he won’t be able to get his jump shot corrected to produce in the NBA. That he has a...

Why was Vegas’ Tomáš Nosek (or Kevin Durant or Justin Turner) playing while waiting on COVID test result?
When we look back on this point in time years down the road, and really know the full effects of charging ahead with sports through a pandemic, there’s a chance we’ll wonder how we could have been so reckless. There’s also a chance nothing may come of it. We don’t know. But using the fact that we do...

NBA doubles-down on national anthem, will require all teams to play it before games
The NBA is doing the most right now....

Cuomo's stupid arena-reopening plan once again ignores actual New Yorkers, & you know, science
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the New York City subway system has been shut down overnight since last spring, ostensibly for deep cleaning, even though trains can be cleaned at their terminals during the day, and even though trains have continued running during overnight hours all along, just empty...

Citi Field opens for 'mass' vaccinations, but with far fewer doses than Yankee Stadium, because NYC
If this isn’t a metaphor for New York baseball I don’t know what is....

SEE IT: Donovan Mitchell breaks defender’s legs without even really trying
Donovan Mitchell doesn’t care about your defense. Donovan Mitchell doesn’t care about an open Rudy Goebert. Donovan Mitchell doesn’t care about Shaq. Donovan Mitchell is just going to Donovan Mitchell — and for Utah Jazz fans, that’s a very good thing. Mitchell called game with a deadly series of mo...

O, say, can you see Mark Cuban's point? No one even noticed lack of national anthem, so let it go
Somehow it escaped most everyone’s attention for 13 home games that the Dallas Mavericks weren’t playing the national anthem before any of them, which pretty much tells you how important the tradition actually was in the first place. The Mavs hadn’t been allowing fans into the arena until Monday’s g...

Kyle Lowry’s potential trade destinations if/when Raptors decide it's 'time to move on'
Longtime Toronto Raptor Kyle Lowry is one expiring contract who could swing the NBA championship picture as much as anyone likely to be dealt by March 25’s deadline. That is, outside of a shocking Bradley Beal or Ben Simmons transaction. Or perhaps a Victor Oladipo re-routing, but even that’s depend...

Helicopter pilot in Kobe Bryant crash was disoriented by clouds avoiding fog, investigators find
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) today said the pilot in the helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gigi Bryant and six other passengers violated federal rules by flying into clouds, where the pilot became disoriented in the air....

Well at least MLB and MLBPA can agree on something
Gonna be a bit of a smorgasbord today. That’s ok, not all of them are gross or a petri dish of foodborne illness. There’s a Polish buffet around here that would change your life. Anyway, to it…...

The Derrick Rose trade could work for Knicks, but only if Immanuel Quickley is allowed to grow
Derrick Rose is back in his second home. The New York Knicks re-acquired the former MVP in a deal over the weekend with the Detroit Pistons, confirmed on Monday morning. The Knicks sent a 2021 second-round pick and enigmatic 2017 top-10 draft choice, Dennis Smith Jr., to Detroit....

Jazz stars call out Utah charter school for letting students skip Black History Month
The first step to unification is education....

You can get bent, Bruce Springsteen
Whenever the actual Super Bowl turns out to be a dud, and this one assuredly was, no matter how much emotion you were able to waste on it and the winning QB, the focus turns to everything around the game. Maybe it’s the halftime show (which was fine to good), or the coverage/broadcast (awful), or th...

President Biden plans to accept Roger Goodell's offer to use NFL stadiums for mass vaccination sites
Starting tomorrow, all NFL stadiums will sit empty through the winter, spring, and summer. Why not use these large, mostly outdoor, venues for the public good? ...

Stop the seasons now and let’s get sports right
We learned this week that the Biden administration wants the start of baseball season to be delayed, a desire that at this point stands to go unfulfilled because the Major League Baseball Players Association is not willing to let ownership link such a delay with a reopening of their collective barga...

Watch Hakeem Jeffries obliterate former NFL player and fellow House Rep. Burgess Owens
It won’t make any Top 10 lists on sports networks but the slam dunk of the week belongs to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on freshman Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah)....

Kevin Durant debacle shows NBA’s COVID policy is a disaster
If you didn’t watch the Nets’ 123-117 loss to the Raptors last night, you might have woken up this morning wondering what the fuck happened with Kevin Durant....

The NHL got its divisions right, which hasn’t saved it from being a farce
The NHL decided this season had to be quartered off in order to keep the players safe as could be, and more importantly their TV money as safe as it could be. What it didn’t realize is how thoroughly it would illustrate how this country compares to others when it comes to dealing with the COVID pand...

De’Aaron Fox is totally right about pointless All-Star Game, which should be virtual like Pro Bowl
De’Aaron Fox, following a 26-point, 11-assist performance in a loss to the Celts Wednesday night, said during his postgame Zoom conference that the NBA’s lust for an All-Star Game this season falls a bit shy of sagacious. ...