20 Page 104 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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...

Pat Riley needs to re-evaluate his Heat
The Miami Heat season is over, and now we all have questions....

The Bucks are first to round two, and are looking like the team to beat (sorry, Nets)
For whatever reason, the Milwaukee Bucks completed Game 4 of Round 1 before the Philadelphia 76ers even began Game 3 of their series....

Nuggets/Blazers is so much more than just Jokić vs. Lillard
Nikola Jokić and Damian Lillard are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do....

The Clippers can’t afford to do this, and yet, they’re doing it
Are the Clippers really going to do this?...

At this point, the Olympic flame might as well be a dumpster fire
Welcome to the latest installment of “things are totally fine in Japan ahead of the Olympics.” Not....

What does Major League Baseball have against the Rays?
I swear, the Tampa Bay Rays are the Rodney Dangerfield of Major League Baseball — they get no respect. And I don’t get it. I just don’t. What do the Rays have to do in order to earn some praise for what they’ve done? Win an AL pennant? Nope, not good enough. MLB gave the Rays just an 18.6 percent ch...

It’s been a tale of two brows lately, and that’s not good enough for Showtime
If the Los Angeles Lakers are going to have any chance at repeating as NBA Champions, they can’t have Anthony Davis finishing games with Andrea Bargnani stat lines....

Look at the rim, Bam — you’ve done it plenty of times before
We’ve had two opposite responses this month to the phrase, “If you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it.”...

The Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau pissing contest continues
“Fucking Christ.”...

CDC warns against travel to Japan, where COVID is surging and nobody wants the Olympics
The pandemic Olympics continue to be one smooth operation....

