2 Page 96 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Boston’s ‘intimidating’ postseason home-court advantage is dead
Boston Celtics fans woke up Tuesday morning still stunned that their team lost by 19 points to the Miami Heat in TD Garden on Monday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Any hopes of back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals were ended by Caleb Martin. And the dream of being the first team t...

DeAndre Hopkins' Instagram story fuels rumors of where he'll sign
After a few months of speculation and trade rumors, the Arizona Cardinals decided to cut WR DeAndre Hopkins. According to Sports Illustrated, only the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs engaged in “substantive” trade talks with the Cards. The reason a trade didn’t go through, per Albert Breer, was...

Anthony Bennett and the NBA Lottery's biggest draft busts of the last decade
Every day, fans of Aleksej “Poku” Pokusevski, Josh Green, or James Wiseman swear next year is the year their favorite players are not the bums the rest of the NBA thinks they are. I went through the last decade, from 2013-2023, and highlighted the 10 players who are on track to be the biggest busts ...
![These are your NBA Conference Finals All-Stars [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/f76d81f8c8a7ff5311833c932baa6622.jpg)
These are your NBA Conference Finals All-Stars [Updated]
Unfortunately, as hard as the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics played in the conference finals, a 2010 rematch did not emerge from the conference finals. Both legendary franchises fell to a 3-0 deficit. The Celtics held on for dear life, but should never have been down that bad. In the end both...

Epic upsets, stellar QBs, and the most notable sports moments of the first half of 2023
Take a deep breath before I reveal a stunning fact, it’s almost June. Some of you were just pulling out the trusty snow blower and now it’s swimsuit season — I hope your diet went better than mine....

The WNBA needs more roster spots — and expansion is the only way to get them
In an era dominated by social media, women’s basketball is experiencing a moment like never before. Brittney Griner is back. The WNBA has countless storylines. And thanks to Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and Jill Biden, the collegiate game is shattering TV ratings. But, for the game to reach another l...

Roberto Firmino will play his last game for Liverpool as my heart aches
The shelf life for soccer players might just be the shortest around. Baseball would like to get there, but in the world of football it still basically works that once you hit 30, they start counting down the clock on you. So on one hand, it seems Roberto Firmino has been playing for Liverpool foreve...

NFL players should have a say in the new Thursday night flex games
Earlier this week, NFL owners voted to pass the approval of flexing for Thursday Night Football games — given that Thursday hasn’t produced the sexiest of slates to quench the appetites of starving fans. With the decision, fans will get a better game to watch and Amazon Prime gets a product to entic...

Lakers' front office competence helped turn slow start into Western Conference Finals appearance
Remember that Baxter Holmes’ ESPN report about the Los Angeles Lakers from four years ago? News of it has been floating around for months before its publication. Holmes made an appearance on Zach Lowe’s podcast in the aftermath of the world reading what he uncovered about Magic Johnson, the Rambis a...
![Aaron Rodgers tweaked his calf, called it a day [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/65e7e3bfc3e34d2e7d83535318dc0550.jpg)
Aaron Rodgers tweaked his calf, called it a day [Update]
Aaron Rodgers appeared to tweak something during warmups at the New York Jets’ OTA in Florham Park, N.J., on Tuesday. ...

The Jokić bros are back and trolled Jack Nicholson out of Crypto.com Arena
The Los Angeles Lakers have been eliminated after falling to the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, 113-111, despite LeBron James playing all 48 minutes, and scoring 40 points. LA was swept out of the postseason after overachieving to make it this far, but none of that matter...

NIL is paying players scraps while the Power 5 just pulled in over $3 billion in revenue
At a time in which some (fans, coaches, athletic directors, media members, school presidents, and politicians) are upset with the way that NIL has changed college sports, it’s rather hypocritical how that same crowd often falls silent when USA Today Sports releases their annual findings — and discov...

The Kyrie Irving to LA, Damian Lillard to Boston rumors will dominate the NBA offseason
At the risk of being a hypocrite and drowning Denver in a flood of Los Angeles Lakers’ developments, the departure from the postseason has stirred up the underbelly of latent Kyrie Irving free agency rumor-mongering. Even in defeat, the superstar carousel never ends in Los Angeles — or Boston for th...

Don't tune out the rest of the NBA playoffs just because the Lakers lost
Some of you American sports fans might be done with the NBA for the 2022-23 season. With the New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, and Golden State Warriors all eliminated, some may feel that it’s time to prepare NFL fantasy draft strategies. Feel free, but with the Denver Nuggets playing the Los Ang...

What does the NHL have to gain by readmitting Joel Quenneville to the league?
It wasn’t hard to imagine the NHL getting back to this point. There are a couple teams in big markets — i.e. New York and Toronto — that have fallen under the dreaded canopy of “need to learn how to win in the playoffs.” There’s a feeling out there that these teams’ stars lack some sort of killer in...

No more encores for LeBron James and the Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers and their fan base have been hit with a heavy dose of reality in the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets. They’ve been a nice “redemption” story after bouncing back from a horrible start to the season, but it’s all over. On Saturday night, the Lakers fell into...

The NBA All-Star game will never again be as competitive as we’d like
So, the NBA is considering changing the All-Star game format yet again. According to a report by Shams Charania and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, this has been a topic discussed recently among the Board of Governors (team owners) and general managers. The Association wants to increase the competiti...

The 2023 WNBA season's juiciest stories to follow
Superteams, and new-look squads. Scandal-riven defending champs. A former political prisoner returns. Rule changes, a pressing need for league expansion, and more. The 2023 WNBA season is here, and these are some of the most riveting storylines to follow all season long....

Putting the World Cup Final in New Jersey would be great, if you like cruel and unusual punishment
The states of New York and New Jersey launched a joint successful campaign to be a host city for the 2026 World Cup a while back. And yeah, of course the world’s biggest individual sporting event couldn’t have the most populous region of the country left out when the United States, Mexico, and Canad...

James Harden wants to escape the NBA title rat race
In his prime, James Harden was the star of the show. His ball dominance was unparalleled. Harden’s expression of basketball is a sublime experience. His ball handling and passing artistry are one of a kind. During his penultimate season in Houston, Harden’s 40.3 usage rate in 2018-19 nearly set an N...