basketball Page 13 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Big men are back in style in the NBA
The 1995-96 season was the end of the golden era for big men in the NBA. Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Shaquille O’Neal were stuffing opponents into lockers with their unstoppable back-to-the-basket games. They were the superstars in the paint, but Alonzo Mourning, Rik Smits, a...
Zion Williamson thinks he’s slick, but we know he won’t ever be in the Dunk Contest
Each year following NBA All-Star weekend, we discuss the slam dunk contest for at least two to three weeks afterward. Whether it’s good, bad or somewhere in the middle, the conversation surrounding it blazes on for some time. Now we get Zion Williamson fanning the flames dunk contest banter, with hi...
NCAA athletes are trying to unionize again — but this time it feels different
On Tuesday, Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team became the latest college team to attempt to unionize — voting 13-2 to join Service Employees Union Local 560, which currently represents other Dartmouth employees. As labor unions rise in popularity — more than two-thirds of all Americans and 88 percent...
15 NBA players we wish competed in the Slam Dunk Contest
The NBA Slam Dunk Contest is on life support. The G-League’s Mac McClung has won the contest for a second year in a row. Despite Boston’s Jaylen Brown attempting to bring stars back to the iconic event, his dunks were relatively unimpressive. ...
Daryl Morey is Oppenheimer for the NBA’s nuclear offensive age
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees. ...
If you can’t trust Anthony Edwards, you can’t trust the Timberwolves
I’m not anti-analytics, because data matters, but there’s no way to factor in things like your best player missing tipoff because he was a late arrival, or a coach pulling his second-best player when he’s on pace for a 70 burger. The Minnesota Timberwolves are a very good basketball team, by record,...
Do the Thunder have a Josh Giddey problem?
Need any more evidence that Gilbert Arenas’ bellyaching about Europeans and foreigners ruining basketball with their sweet outside strokes is all hot air? I’ll give you one: Josh Giddey. Now that his legal woes appear to be in the rearview mirror, the whispers about his liabilities in the Oklahoma C...
Hopefully the Caitlin Clark effect doesn't end with Caitlin Clark
The buzz around Caitlin Clark eclipsing Pete Maravich’s record on Sunday was enough to get celebs to Iowa City for the occasion. I’m not talking about Travis Scott. Jake from State Farm might be sports’ Forrest Gump, but celebs walking into college arenas to dap up the TV insurance guy while neglect...
Turns out America loves the Denver Nuggets
Most of the state of Colorado can’t watch the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets. However, the rest of America is enjoying the show. NBA insider/analyst Ethan Strauss dove into some viewership data for a recent post on his substack....
Gilbert Arenas xenophobic NBA rant is the nonsense JJ Reddick warned us about
Why anyone listens to former Memphis Grizzlies guard Gilbert Arenas is beyond me. He could be an entertaining listen if he had the self-awareness to realize where the limits of his sense of humor are. Or he could regale his listeners with stories of what it was like to share the floor with former De...
Dejounte Murray hurt an NBA ref's delicate feelings; wound up with a T
Atlanta Hawks guard Dejounte Murray found out the hard way Saturday night about getting on an official’s bad side. During Atlanta’s 114-102 loss to the Brooklyn Nets, Murray was given a technical foul during a timeout while sitting on the sideline. Apparently, NBA referees have resorted to handing o...
Kevin Garnett accuses LeBron James of doping; 'Cream Abdul-Jabbar' rises to the top; Jordan Poole hits rock bottom
Could Bronny James score a bucket against his father, LeBron? Kevin Garnett certainly doesn’t think so. - Criss Partee Read More...
Victor Wembanyama finally got a win against Chet Holmgren
Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren play for teams that occupy two very different places in the Western Conference standings. The San Antonio Spurs are going to be in the running for a second-consecutive No. 1 overall pick. The Oklahoma City Thunder are a game behind the Minnesota Timberwolves for t...
The Houston Cougars would be the unlikeliest champion in modern NCAA history
Coming off the high of 2023, the 2024 NBA Draft class is destined to be one of the most lifeless in modern history, which explains the predicament men’s college basketball has found itself in here in 2024. While the women are pumping out household names such as Caitlyn Clark, JuJu Watkins, Paige Bue...
Caitlin Clark declares for the WNBA draft
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has declared for the WNBA draft today, forgoing her final year of eligibility, she confirmed in a post on her social media account. ...
'Cream Abdul-Jabbar' has Indiana State back in the spotlight
The first Magic Johnson and Larry Bird matchup in the 1979 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship Game is the most viewed college basketball game of all time. Being that more than 35 million people watched, certainly a few of them have wondered over the years what happened to the Indiana State ...
Here are increasingly radical solutions to combat the NBA’s overpowered offenses
Scoring in the NBA has ticked up at an exponential rate in the last decade. It doesn’t take Hercule Poirot to figure out what killed NBA defenses. This is a shooter’s league now....
NBA defenses can't keep up with the record-setting highest-scoring offenses
Complaints about NBA defensive intensity have littered sports debate television, podcasts, and columns all season. As of Tuesday, the top five teams in offensive rating will have the five highest marks in that category in NBA history. Six players have scored 60 or more points this season. Luka Donči...
Monty Williams is absolutely right about bad officials missing obvious calls
Detroit Pistons head coach Monty Williams was furious following Monday night’s 113-111 loss to the Knicks. The officiating crew for the game missed a blatant foul with 8.6 seconds remaining in the game following a Pistons steal while Detroit led by one. The missed call was so bad that the most novic...
Juwan Howard and John Beilein finally have something in common — 20-loss seasons at Michigan
One guy did it in his first season in Ann Arbor — before going on to win a pair of regular-season and conference tournament championships, along with appearing in two national title games. The latest guy is doing it in what might be his last season in Ann Arbor — with one regular-season championship...