basketball Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart are the WNBA’s Bird and Magic
There’s nothing worse than an ending that doesn’t offer a definite ending. Think The Sopranos cutting to black in the diner or Emmy-winning GLOW being canceled on a cliffhanger during the pandemic as the ‘94 MLB strike-shortened season of series finales. Last month, Winning Time ended with the Bosto...
Was that Jimmy Butler or Jared Leto at Heat media day?
Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler turned heads at the team’s media day on Monday with his new “emo Jimmy” look. Butler walked in with his hair straightened, covering one side of his face, which included piercings above one eye and lips, complete with black fingernail polish. ...
Will NBA2K put the WNBA MVP on the next cover?
To the victor go the spoils, unless you’re an MVP in the WNBA....
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard are about to become masters of the basketball universe
For years, the NBA Republic imagined a union of Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo. However, the partnership of basketball’s greatest gravitational forces would only happen unless Antetekounmpo initiated a desire to play in Golden State before he signed a supermax contract in 2020. Six months lat...
This Jimmy Haslam-Milwaukee Bucks storyline could lead to some interesting developments
Before Wednesday, it wouldn’t have been crazy to think that some Bucks fans were on the precipice of panic. Their star — Giannis Antetokounmpo — had publicly stated that he won’t sign an extension until he gets a title commitment from the front office. And their new co-owner — Jimmy Haslam, who is a...
MVP controversy takes center stage in Liberty-Suns playoff series
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Do not say Liberty forward Breanna Stewart didn’t deserve the WNBA’s Most Valuable Player award. Not after the way she backed it up against the Suns Tuesday night in an 84-77 win over the Sun at the Barclays Center in Game 2 of their playoff series....
Kim Mulkey’s willingness to share her recent health scare is good for college sports
On the court, there’s no doubt as to what Kim Mulkey is capable of. She’s one of the best in women’s basketball, college sports, and probably sports in general. That’s why she signed a 10-year, $36-million contract with LSU recently. Off the court, her reluctance to comment on Brittney Griner’s deta...
Hakeem Olajuwon charges $50K to teach what cannot be taught — good for him
One of the best/least consequential storylines in all of sports is of the big man who goes to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Dream Shake academy to learn one of the most lethal, and unteachable, moves in the history of the NBA. At $50,000 a session, it’s as close to a Ponzi scheme as you’re going to get without ...
LeBron James, wife and 2 associates named in federal PED investigation
There hasn’t been a performance-enhancing drugs scandal in basketball. At least, not to the level of, say, the likes of BALCO and Major League Baseball. As close as we came was when the NBA started testing players for HGH before the beginning of the 2015-16 season. The trendy thing to do online at t...
The NBA can try all it wants, player rest is impossible to stop
Remember when the Dallas Mavericks concluded an embarrassing 2022-23 season by not dressing Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić instead of attempting to qualify for the Play-in Tournament? The Mavericks were fined $750,000, and I think that the NBA reached a breaking point in its never-ending saga of star-...
LeBron James is Team USA’s shadow GM and possibly its next director
LeBron James is back to doing what he does best, flexing those roster construction muscles as the league’s greatest shadow GM. According to Shams Charania and Joe Vardon’s report in The Athletic, an effort to recruit Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum and Draymond Green, is being...
USA’s FIBA World Cup loss to Germany proves something needs to change before the 2024 Olympics
The Americans will leave this year’s FIBA World Cup without a title....
Kim Mulkey getting paid is just latest evidence that college sports is alive and well
Locking in Kim Mulkey as a Bayou Bengal for life was always a matter of when, not if, especially coming after leading LSU to a national championship in her second season on campus. No matter what you think of Mulkey off the court — and trust me, there’s plenty to criticize — she’s one heck of a bask...
Breanna Stewart is the heir apparent to Diana Taurasi’s scoring crown
In a sport where offense sells, Breanna Stewart is a closer. On Tuesday night, the New York Liberty needed each and every one of Stewart’s 40 points on a panoply of turnaround fadeaways, driving finishes, post-ups, and off-the-dribble triples to put away the Dallas Wings 94-93. ...
Coco Gauff is proof that tennis is wack without Black women
They used to not want Althea Gibson’s “kind” around. Now we don’t know where tennis would be without them. That’s how you ace an opportunity....
Team USA must play like this for the rest of the FIBA World Cup
Americans don’t care when Team USA wins non-gold medal games. But they do give a damn if they lose them....
College football on Labor Day has always been a sick joke
Labor Day Weekend serving as the official kickoff for college football is still the biggest oxymoron in sports. For decades, college football was the most abhorrent, openly accepted form of free labor. Unlike their basketball counterparts, NFL-caliber athletes are forced to push themselves through t...
Why have there been so many WNBA broadcasting blunders this season?
Broadcasters in the 2023 WNBA season are mostly pronouncing players’ names right. Considering the frequency with which on-air talent mispronounced players’ names (or misnamed players) in recent years, this is a triumph....
Dennis Schröder wasn’t having any of his FIBA World Cup coach's foolishness
Most NBA players see it as an honor to represent their country in the FIBA World Cup, especially those from outside the United States. These players usually won’t pass up the opportunity to play for the bragging rights of becoming “real” world champions. But like most players today, the old way of c...
Team USA’s lack of size was exploited in men's World Cup loss to Lithuania
The United States Senior Men’s Basketball Team got its feelings hurt on Sunday. In the final game of the 2023 FIBA World Cup Group Stage, they suffered their first international defeat of 2023 with a 110-104 loss to Lithuania....