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Kenny Atkinson pulled a Whitley, leaving Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Hornets at the altar
This is not said very often, but poor Michael Jordan. The NBA legend got Whitleyed by Kenny Atkinson. Jordan was about to start a new life with Atkinson leading his Charlotte Hornets. They fit together as well as Byron and Whitley in the fifth season of A Different World, but then Dwayne Wayne, a.k....

Jayson Tatum is not a superstar (yet)
More than in previous seasons, these playoffs exposed frauds masquerading as superstars. The list is long — Donovan Mitchell, Zach LaVine, Jimmy Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker. You can add Jayson Tatum to that list. After putting on a blitzkrieg throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs, ...

Upsets, Jell-O shots abound at College World Series
The College World Series has officially kicked off, and with one hell of an opening day. On Friday, the Oklahoma Sooners racked up eight runs in the first two innings against Texas A&M, including a three-run homer from catcher Jimmy Crooks. The Aggies just couldn’t catch up for the rest of the game ...

Can’t deny Steph any longer
Steph Curry collected the Finals MVP last night that, the award that for some reason, some people think was required to validate him. As repeated ad nauseam by me and others, there are few players who changed the game completely, and Curry is one of them. Even when he was off, as he was in Game 5, h...

We should all salute the baller named Sue
Sue Bird announced today that this WNBA season will be her last after 21 years in the league. She was drafted first overall in 2002 to the Seattle Storm, where she has remained throughout her two-decade career, during which she was a 12-time All-Star and won four WNBA championships, the most recent ...

After missing OTAs, Lamar Jackson is back with the Ravens, and still without a contract extension
Lamar Jackson talked to the media for the first time this offseason today. He elected to train on his own during OTAs and did not report to the Baltimore Ravens facility until the start of mandatory minicamp on Tuesday....

The hypocrisy of Senate candidate Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker’s proclivity for spewing absolute nonsense is surpassed only by his habitual lying and noxious hypocrisy. Walker has already lied about being his high school valedictorian, lied about being a cop, he held a gun to his ex-wife’s head and to top it off is virtually unintelligible in di...

Now’s apparently the time to ask Vince McMahon for anything
Given my history of putting the kibosh on stuff I proclaim, I’m probably putting paid to one of the things I want most in the world. But, wrestling media and social media were alight last night with reports that Sasha Banks had secured her release from WWE. No one has confirmed it, but no one has de...

Tommy Pham metes out justice with zero remorse
It seems like any and all TV and film studios are willing to green light content remotely resembling IP. We’re getting universes that we didn’t know existed — think the Warner Bros. expansion from Toon Town to every movie they’ve ever made in Space Jam 2. So, if an exec bereft of creativity could pl...

Mavs just picked the Rockets’ pocket
Late last night, after Dallas citizens had finished dinner and stretched out on the couch, ready to watch reruns of Cheaters, the Mavericks front office and The Athletic’s Shams Charania dropped a bomb out of nowhere. The Mavericks would be trading the No. 26 overall pick of the 2022 draft, Boban Ma...

If 'We Own This City' was any indication, Baltimoreans still very much love the Orioles
During a recent vacation, I binged HBO’s We Own This City, which plays out like an epilogue to The Wire. I could go into the plot points and actor Jon Bernthal’s exquisite performance as corrupt supercop Wayne Jenkins, but all you really need to know, as it pertains to this piece is, god damn, the O...

What, if anything, do we take from the USMNT draw with El Salvador?
Let’s start by not overreacting to a 1-1 draw against El Salvador. It was the same result that kicked off the United States’ Octagonal round of World Cup qualifying. That matchup from last September mattered way more to the US. And the Yanks didn’t score in that game....

The NHL finally gets its era-shifting Final with Lightning vs. Avs
Hockey being what it is, mostly weird and random, rarely throws up the two best teams in the NHL’s showpiece, the Stanley Cup Final. Sometimes we get close, and most seasons it’s actually hard to decipher who are clearly the best teams. With shootouts and overtime goofiness affecting the standings, ...

Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James for an NBA title? It could happen in real life, just not quite the way you want it
It’s the 2043 NBA Finals. The erosion of the east coast is impossible to ignore, and it will be illegal to hold summer football activities outdoors because the average temperature in most places will be 115 degrees. But indoors, the matchup the world has been waiting for will finally take place. Tha...

The Minnesota incubator is about to do it again
Since the Minneapolis Lakers won half of the league’s first 10 NBA titles and then shuffled off to Los Angeles where they won13 more, Minnesota has been an incubator for NBA championship parades–in other cities. After the Lakers’ relocated to L.A., the NBA didn’t return to Minnesota until 1989. The ...

Phil Mickelson tries to justify joining LIV tour (again), fails (again)
Phil Mickelson is facing the golf media in the lead-up to this weekend’s U.S. Open, and suffice it to say: it isn’t pretty. It’s not that the LIV press conferences have exactly gone easy on the defecting golfers, but the press has faced more moderation and censorship from people who have also been p...

Little Caesars and the NFL together, as they know what their customers want
There will be no more Craig Robinson and JuJu Smith-Schuster Super Bowl pizza commercials. Because the NFL feels the need to let the world know that they have an official sponsor for everything whether it be pizza, beer, or tablets that Tom Brady smashes into pieces....

How can anyone root against Steph Curry? I’ll tell you how
I tend to cringe when NBA pundits incredulously ask, “How could anyone root against Steph Curry?!” I’m not a LeBron true believer, here to disparage the greatest shooter in the history of the game. He’s incredible. The hand-eye coordination is something out of Star Wars. When little Anakin Skywalker...

Jeff Hardy needs help
It’s undeniable at this point. Jeff Hardy must come to terms with how lucky he is that his reckless behavior has not seriously hurt anyone thus far. He’s repeatedly put himself in danger outside the squared circle after making his career with a high-flying, daredevil style. Hardy seeking professiona...
