ass Page 43 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It’s the summer of Grant!
The NBA Playoffs were not nearly as kind to Grant Williams in 2023 as 2022. However, the summer has been his oyster, specifically this month. He spent Independence Day weekend at the event of the summer — Michael Rubin’s White Party. A couple of days after mingling with A-Listers, the Boston Celtics...

The sports world takes sports betting more seriously than violence against women and racism — go figure
Greg Hardy got to play football again. Antonio Brown keeps hanging around. Donald Sterling and Robert Sarver made millions after selling their teams. The NCAA keeps making billions off the backs of unpaid teenage Black basketball players in March. Pete Rose still can’t get into the Hall of Fame — ma...

The 15 Most Valuable Professional Sports Franchises
This story was corrected and revised on July 6, 2023. ...

Will the NBA’s new flopping rule really change anything?
The NBA is testing a new rule to dissuade players from flopping every time down the court. Flopping has become so common over the past 20 years that it’s part of the association’s culture. However, the league has finally decided to make an attempt to cut down on guys flopping all over the court....

Building and destroying men: The Greater Toronto Hockey League's assault on childhood
Scott Fraser inhales deeply. “I got way too many things in the vault, brother.”...

ESPN’s studio show format made its talent expendable
After weeks of speculation and rumors, ESPN gave us its own version of Black Monday, letting loose around 20 highly visible, and in a few cases, staple personalities Friday. Jeff Van Gundy, Suzy Kolber, Jalen Rose, Keyshawn Johnson, Matt Hasselback, Todd McShay, Max Kellerman, Steve Young, and LaPho...

James Harden is chasing an ideal that doesn’t exist
It’s fair to ask the question, what does James Harden want? Is it a ring? Is it a lifestyle? Is it his own team? The 33-year-old former one-man wrecking crew is no longer an indestructible pinball, bouncing off of everything, and amassing high score after high score. No team is going to hand him the...

Women’s hockey reforms, for better or worse
A pro women’s hockey league in North America has been something of an ungettable dream. Or at least having one unified one has been. There was the CWHL in Canada, but that folded. There was the NWHL, which became the PHF, but it ran alongside the CWHL and never with it. When the CWHL folded, the PWH...

Lakers have their sights set on key Nuggets role player
Free agency and the drama surrounding it in the NBA officially begins Friday at 6 pm EST. We’ve already heard of some of the trades set in motion and rumors about certain free agents and where they might end up, but June 30 is when the frenzy really jumps off. The Los Angeles Lakers will be in the s...

The NFL and NBA players associations are taking questionable leadership routes
The first collective bargaining agreement in the history of professional sports was signed by the MLB and MLBPA in 1966. At that time the executive director of the MLBPA was the late Marvin Miller, formerly a union negotiator for workers of U.S. Steel. His fierce advocacy for labor rights is largely...

The Spurs like to mess with us, but it would have been unwise to use Victor Wembanyama to do so
Look at the San Antonio Spurs doing their part to properly sell the NBA. For a time there was a chance that Victor Wembanyama might be making his handful of NBA Summer League games in Sacramento and not during the league’s big event in Las Vegas....

Stop hating on the NCAA for being spineless
Criticizing the NCAA is the lowest of low-hanging fruit. You can essentially pick the apples up off the ground, and have a roiling take. The latest punishments, or lack thereof, handed down to LSU football and men’s basketball last week were predictably lax and anything but a hindrance for schools t...

The Reggie Evans Bad Basketball Basketball Hall of Fame 2023 inductees
Studies have shown that negative news garners more of the public’s attention than positive news, so with that knowledge, I propose an alternative to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The Basketball Hall of Fame has the prestige, but it doesn’t generate as much conversation as Twitter ramblings f...

Does Warriors' Draymond Green still have 'beef' with Chris Paul?
An old clip has resurfaced of Draymond Green giving his unfiltered thoughts on his “relationship” with new teammate Chris Paul. As usual, Green did not hold back and kept it real, saying, “I don’t like CP at all like we don’t have a good relationship at all, but I respect his hustle, and I respect h...

Notorious cheater Lance Armstrong has some thoughts on fairness in sports
Lance Armstong, a cisgender man and notorious cheater with, as far as I can tell, no training in anything related to endocrinology, biology, or gender-affirming care, has some thoughts on the fairness of transgender women competing in women’s sports. On a related note, irony died today....

Are no-trade clauses still needed in the NBA?
It’s like the holy grail of professional sports contracts. The elusive no-trade clause. This stipulation is preserved for a select few, but they almost seem pointless in the NBA. Last week Bradley Beal waived the no-trade clause in his deal with the Washington Wizards to clear a path to Phoenix. He ...

Victor Wembanyama won't be NBA Rookie of the Year
Every betting site has Victor Wembanyama installed as the runaway favorite to earn Rookie of the Year. In case you want to start engraving Victor Wembanyama’s name on the award already, take a moment to consider this. Rookie of the Year hasn’t always gone to the incandescent talent from every draft ...

College basketball is still the best route to the NBA, but maybe not for the stars
Of the 58 players selected in the 2023 NBA Draft, 46 went the traditional route: They played collegiately. NBA teams have drafted a handful of players outside of that pathway for years, especially in the second round. Nearly 80 percent of players selected coming through the college ranks might appea...

Chris Paul brings stability to the Warriors' dreadful reserves
Title-chasing leads to strange bedfellows. Steph Curry has now been tasked with accomplishing what Kevin Durant failed — dragging Chris Paul’s withering body to an NBA title. He’s no longer an All-Star caliber player, but there’s still something left. Now, the future Hall of Famer will be imported i...

Scoot Henderson went third, but is still the second-best player in this NBA draft class
Scoot Henderson is not the ideal 2023 NBA basketball player. That archetype is a 6-foot-7 or taller shooter with good defensive instincts. Henderson is 6-foot-2 and his jump shot is still a work in progress. With the profile of a franchise point guard prospect from 2002, Henderson is considered the ...