as Page 708 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Dallas Mavericks are struggling and Luka Dončić deserves some of the blame
For the second straight year, this pipe dream of Luka Dončić being NBA MVP seems to be going up in flames already. Dallas started the season well, but now they’re a game under .500 (11-12) and have lost eight of their last 10 games. It’s not so much Luka’s statistical production, although his shooti...

Here’s what Cooper Kupp was talking about
The Los Angeles Rams demolished the Jacksonville Jaguars last Sunday. I guess the Rams were tired of losing after going winless through November. The Rams took their frustrations out on rookie head coach Urban Meyer and rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Matt Stafford threw for three touchdowns in ...

And just like that… (poof)... NXT is gone
It’s not that it was surprising. Back when WWE announced it was completely reshaping it’s junior brand, NXT, I wrote that it would be the end of what fans of the black and gold had come to love. I guess I’m just impressed (while simultaneously depressed) at how ruthlessly and efficiently it came to ...

Major League Soccer has a better ‘Rooney Rule’ than the NFL
Eighteen years ago, the most prejudiced sports league in American professional sports (Major League Baseball is a close second) created their version of “affirmative action” when they came up with the Rooney Rule — named after the legendary Steelers owner Dan Rooney — in hopes of helping diverse can...
![The Sun Bowl wants you to know it doesn't provide sex workers for the media [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/e371ce8116544fa45e475b144960aa97.jpg)
The Sun Bowl wants you to know it doesn't provide sex workers for the media [Updated]
At first glance, it should be go without asking that assigning sex workers to media members is not a perk of traveling to bowl games. And yet, here we are. And the story of how we got here is a journey. ...

You’re a fool if you think Belichick doesn’t trust Mac Jones
Monday night, we saw a familiar outcome in the NFL: the New England Patriots beating the Buffalo Bills. Despite horrid weather conditions and having to play on the road, the Patriots continued their dominant play as of late, thus lengthening their lead in the AFC East and doing so while having their...

Spare thoughts for the former Gil Hodges Lanes
I don’t really know what I was expecting, going to a bowling alley that’s two names removed from what it was called when my grandparents used to take me there, and thinking that maybe there would be something special about the fact that the old namesake, finally, many years late, had been elected to...

Russell Westbrook is tired of hearing about his alleged phone call to Kawhi Leonard in the summer of 2019
The Lakers’ Russell Westbrook-LeBron James experiment hasn’t exactly worked out how everyone in Los Angeles had hoped coming into the season. But if Westbrook had been able to persuade Kawhi Leonard to bring him along on his way to LA a couple of years ago, Westbrook would have been a Clipper and no...

The Jose Mourinho cycle has gotten ruthlessly efficient
Life is about evolving, and economy of motion is one of those things we strive for. How do we do the things we have to do every day in the cleanest way possible? Mostly it’s about financial budgeting, but there comes a part in everyone’s life when you decide what you really need in your house and in...

These Bulls are so much goddamn fun
I won’t lie to you, dear reader. Things are pretty bleak around here in Chicago, sports-wise. And actually beyond sports-wise, but I’m not qualified to discuss those things, really. Our center, the Bears, are an elaborate prank played on all of us by a trickster god, or at least they’d better be. Fi...

Another bad hit and look for the NHL
Once again, the NHL headlines will be dominated by an incident of a player using the vulnerability of another to excuse trying to end his night, season, maybe career. This one isn’t as cut and dried as Sunday night’s chicanery, though no less ugly....

The New England Patriots still rule the AFC — deal with it
Bill Belichick is the AFC’s Thanos. He’s inevitable. ...

Horse racing should be put out of its misery
In yet another measure of how irrelevant horse racing has gotten, Kentucky Derby “winner” Medina Spirit collapsed and died at Santa Anita yesterday. He had a heart attack after a workout, which 3-year-old horses don’t tend to do. It does happen, though, but is rare. ...

Biden’s diplomatic boycott of Olympics in China is about as empty as his presidency
It’s not that anyone should have expected the Joe Biden administration to pull the big card and keep U.S. athletes away from Beijing in February. It would have led other nations to do the same, and might have actually been the rare instance of someone standing up to China for all the atrocities it c...

2021 Rookie QB Rankings: It takes two to make a thing go right
It’s Week 13 of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks are front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 13....

So it really wasn’t necessary to blow up the Dolphins a second time after all
It was all over for the Miami Dolphins after the trade deadline. They were willing to sell all of their credibility and goodwill to trade for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, despite the whole “Tanking for Tua [Tagovailoa]” hashtag in 2019. The No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft did ...

Divock Origi, the club legend who never plays
Every fandom has their cult heroes who seemingly drop in out of the sky and provide a lifelong memory. Phillies fans have Matt Stairs. Bulls fans have Steve Kerr, to an extent (Kerr was a fine player but he does seem an odd choice from the gods to hit a title-clinching shot, no? Then again, he did i...

The hockey men were at it again last night
A few times throughout the season, randomly, there’s a night where it feels like hockey players across the league lose their mind. It’s like a hive mentality, perhaps when the banality of the regular season sinks in or becomes too much to deal with and they have to break out in the only way they kno...

Rockets are stuck in a staring contest with John Wall and there’s no end in sight
If you want to know who has the sweetest gig in America right now, look no further than John Wall of the Houston Rockets. Wall isn’t rehabbing an injury for the first time in years, he’s supposed to be 100 percent healthy, yet he has not suited up for one of Houston’s first 23 games this season....

The Flyers needed to fire Alain Vigneault last year
The Philadelphia Flyers fired coach Alain Vigneault on Monday, and the truth is it should have come sooner, and it’s probably not enough....