2 Page 150 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The 2018 NBA Draft class could rank among best of the decade
It’s time for us to take a good look at the 2018 NBA draft class....

Can the Clippers benefit from a quick turnaround against the well-rested Utah Jazz?
Fresh off the apparent re-emergence of Kawhi Leonard following a worrisome Game 5, the Los Angeles Clippers find themselves in Salt Lake City, and not Cancun, tonight....

Things aren’t looking so hot in Green Bay
Have you ever seen “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly?” No, seriously. The 1966 Western starring Clint Eastwood is a classic, featuring horses and gunfights and bravado and all that toxic Hollywood macho “this is what a man is” stuff. The movie reaches a boiling point in a three-way standoff between E...

Ryan Fitzpatrick has been doing this football thing for a minute
With the 250th pick in the seventh round of the 2005 NFL draft, the St. Louis Rams (’memba them?) selected a quarterback out of Harvard — not exactly a football powerhouse. His name was Ryan Fitzpatrick, and of the 13 quarterbacks taken before him, only one (Aaron Rodgers) still plays in the league....

Do those MVP trophies come with a receipt?
No individual award in American sports generates more debate than the NBA MVP. No one cares about hockey, and half the awards are given to players where the voters don’t really understand why they’re voting for them. Baseball awards are too mired in the debate between how we view the game today and ...

Euro 2021: For the last time, is this Belgium’s time?
For European teams, the lack of opportunities to actually win a trophy can muddy the results they do get. There’s only a trophy on offer every two years (when there isn’t a pandemic), and perhaps Spain at the beginning of the last decade altered our perception of what’s success and what isn’t....

Luka’s first Game 7 will tell us a lot about the young superstar
This Game 7 is huge for Luka Dončić. ...

With Harden knocked out early, Nets remind Bucks they’re still stacked
James Harden left Game 1 of the Nets-Bucks series in the first minute, after aggravating the hamstring injury that cost him 21 games during the regular season. Steve Nash doesn’t know whether Harden will be available for Game 2 — either way, the former MVP’s health coming into question reshapes ever...

Devin Booker goes off, joins rarified NBA royalty in slaying L.A.
The NBA has a superstar that not enough people talk about as being in the top tier of league talents, but last night he showcased that he belongs. On the road, to close out the defending champions, Devin Booker went ballistic — he dropped 47 points (a playoff career-high), 11 rebounds, eight three-p...

Meet MLB’s All-'Never-been an All-Star' Team
Nowadays, it seems like every baseball player under the sun has been an All-Star at some point in their careers. In 2019, there were four AL second basemen selected for the Midsummer Classic. FOUR! In total, there were 75 players awarded All-Star recognition in 2019. In 2018, 73 players were named A...

The 10 coaches with the most wins in NCAA Tournament history — guess who's at the top?
Since we found out that Mike Krzyzewski was retiring after this upcoming season on Wednesday, the Duke head coach has been the lead story throughout the sports world. At the age of 74, the G.O.A.T. has decided to hang it up....

Alex Nedeljkovic may not win the Calder Trophy, but he’s undoubtedly been the NHL’s most valuable rookie
Earlier today, the three finalists for the 2021 Calder Trophy were named....

Will we actually see an NBA Finals without LeBron?
We might be in store for something very rare in the NBA — a Finals that doesn’t include LeBron James. With the Lakers down 3-2 to the Phoenix Suns, the possibility is becoming more and more likely that the defending champs won’t make it out of the first round. Not seeing Lebron making a deep playoff...

Grizzlies are closer than you think to being a part of the NBA’s upper echelon
The Grizzlies are a front office move away from wrecking the entire NBA....

Coach K is retiring — Duke Basketball will be buck wild next season
Bonkers. Crazy. Nuts....

Billy Hamilton (yes, him) is finally a fan favorite, as he was always meant to be
Major League Baseball is chock full of fun, meme-able characters that everybody loves to mock — but loves to root for even more. Take Bartolo Colon. He’d always been a solid player (even earned a couple of All-Star appearances in his final years), but was never one of the dominant arms in the game. ...

I enjoy whatever sport it is Damian Lillard plays
Back when I was in school in Boston in the pre-2004 days (yeah, I’m that fucking old and I don’t need you to remind me), I used to joke with the Red Sox fans in my circle that somehow the fact that the Sox lost the 1975 World Series had been erased from the record books thanks to Carlton Fisk’s home...

We can applaud Naomi Osaka without disparaging the media
Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open has sparked necessary conversation about athletes and mental health. It was so important to her that she was willing to sacrifice a potential $1.8 million in prize money to put her own peace first. That’s not the act of a so-called diva, or of ...

If it’s not the Leafs this season, which teams have the best (worst?) shot at passing the Rangers 54-year Cup futility?
The New York Rangers are the historic gold standard for futility in the NHL, having gone 54 years without winning the Stanley Cup until finally getting the job done in 1994 (see Mark Messier with the Cup above) — after decades of being taunted with “1940” chants in enemy arenas....

Man City's Pep just can’t help himself
Perhaps the true sign of a great manager is how long he can leave his team on autopilot once his system and tactics are installed. While each game requires minor adjustments here or there, they shouldn’t amount to much more than the grade on the tires. The engine remains the same. And no team should...