basketball Page 170 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

They Want Her To Be The Next Yao Ming, But What Does She Want?
Han Xu, the tallest player in the WNBA, hunched over the menu at a trendy Brooklyn pizza spot, trying to figure out what to order in a place that lists “bèchamel” as an ingredient. This would possibly be difficult even if she could read English, but the Chinese center does not. Decked head to toe in...

Go Ahead And Get Upset About Kevin Durant's Injury
After a rapid and opaque rehabilitation from a strained calf, Kevin Durant’s return to Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday was cut short by a devastating injury. Everyone on the Warriors seems both stricken and kind of confused about who to blame; journalists like The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami who wrot...

Cleveland Cavaliers Hire Cal's Lindsay Gottlieb As Assistant Coach
New Cleveland Cavaliers coach John Beilein has made a notable addition to his coaching staff by bringing on Cal women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb. Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news this afternoon, and the Cavs announced the hire shortly afterwards. Gottlieb will be the first women’s college ...

Nick Van Exel Discovers, Is Enraptured By Iced Coffee
It started out so simple....

Rich Paul Sits Down For Long <i>Sports Illustrated</i> Profile Just To Tell The Celtics To Screw
Sports Illustrated has published a long profile of NBA agent and LeBron James confidant Rich Paul, who is probably the most famous agent in sports right now given his involvement in the Anthony Davis trade saga. It’s about as compelling as a long story about a sports agent can possibly be, but it’s ...

The Warriors Need DeMarcus Cousins Now, Which Is Concerning For Everyone Involved
Kevin Durant is short a limb. Kevon Looney’s ribs are splayed open like a blooming onion. Andre Iguodala has rocks in his shoes. The Warriors need two more wins, and medicine is not on their side. DeMarcus Cousins is, though....

Who The Hell Knows How This Ends, But At Least It's Not Without A Fight
Nope, I have nothing for you. I cannot explain how the Golden State Warriors won Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and neither can any of you. A team in tatters refused to shred, and it remains obstinate in the face of a hockey team’s list of injuries. This is almost not at all about the Toronto Raptors any...

Who's To Blame?
The reactions to a catastrophic NBA injury usually unfold in very simple terms. Stomachs drop, deep sympathies are expressed for the player involved, and everyone moves on while shaking their heads and grumbling about how sometimes life just isn’t fair. Rarely do such injuries lead to the general ma...

The Raptors Blew It
Coming close hurts all the more when you can quantify just how close you came. One shot, or one missed shot, or one call the other way, or ... one timeout? The Raptors came oh so close to winning a championship Monday night, and it’s not the one-point final margin that’ll stick in craws and steal sl...

Kevin Durant's Achilles Injury Sounds Like Bad News All The Way Around
Warriors president of basketball operations Bob Myers spoke at the postgame podium Monday night following his team’s 106–105 victory over the Toronto Raptors in Game 5. That’s an unusual step for a personnel honcho, but these are unusual circumstances—it fell to Myers to announce that Durant’s injur...

Several Minutes Of Horrendous Basketball Result In Warriors Surviving Game 5
Game 5 was anything but pretty. The first half was defined by Kevin Durant’s triumphant return, and then Kevin Durant’s disastrous re-injury. The second half was defined by one transcendent three-minute stretch from Kawhi Leonard, and then three minutes of ridiculous, frantic, slapstick mutual failu...

Success Spoiled Golden State Warriors Fans
A year ago, Steph Curry told SLAM how grateful he was that Oakland had embraced him “as one of their own.” He’s done his part, there: tons of local charity work, putting Oakland on a shoe and then giving 30 of them away. All of which is to say that he could likely tell you more about the town other ...

Report: Kevin Durant's "Expected" To Play Game 5
The Golden State Warriors are facing elimination, but Kevin Durant, who hurt his leg a month ago, isn’t a sure thing for tonight’s game against the Raptors. At today’s practice, head coach Steve Kerr wouldn’t say anything beyond calling his player a “game-time decision” for Game 5 of the NBA Finals....

Kevin Durant Practiced, But Maybe Not That Much, And Nobody Knows What The Hell Is Going On
Kevin Durant’s month-long absence from the Golden State Warriors while he tries to recover from a calf injury has thrown the NBA Finals totally out of whack. Now, with the Warriors down 3-1 to the Raptors and facing a potential dynasty-ending Game 5 on Monday, Durant’s return seems like the only thi...

The Raptors Are The Warriors Now
Recency bias is a hateful but dominant force in the best-of-seven world, so the clear assumption to be made from Game 4 of the NBA Finals is that Game 6 seems unlikely. The Toronto Raptors are the new Golden State Warriors, and the Golden State Warriors are finally all about the trailing step, the a...

Kawhi Leonard Took Over And The Warriors Couldn't Do A Thing About It
The Warriors as currently constituted are “merely” a great NBA team. In just about any other context, it’s peak roster construction. A couple of all-world shooters, a couple of bangers down low with shots of their own, a scattering of role players each with their own specific skills, and an overall ...
![The Old Knob Who Shoved Kyle Lowry Is Warriors Minority Owner Mark Stevens [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/lent7n5pnligdcnsm8op.jpg)
The Old Knob Who Shoved Kyle Lowry Is Warriors Minority Owner Mark Stevens [Update]
The man who pushed Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry during Game 3 of the NBA Finals last night was none other than Warriors minority owner Mark Stevens, the team has confirmed. The news was first reported by Axios. ...

The Raptors Won But Finals Chaos Still Reigns
It’s cheap to say that the Raptors beat the Gldn Stae Warors (which is to say, 63 percent of the Golden State Warriors) in Game 3 of the NBA Finals; in fact, it isn’t much of a stretch to say that the Raptors might have won the game anyway....

Raptors Snatch Back Home-Court Advantage With Game 3 Beatdown Of Gutted Warriors
There may be no satisfying takeaway from Toronto’s Game 3 123–109 victory over the Warriors in Oakland, beyond the completely obvious reminder that however great Steph Curry is, he cannot beat an NBA Finals team completely by himself. Steve Kerr held Klay Thompson out of the action, and so the Warri...

What If The Raptors Had To Choose Between Kawhi And Drake?
There are rules to the Deadcast, although we don’t generally pay that much attention to them. For the most part, as you might have noticed, it goes like this: Bullshit/sports, sports, sports/Funbag, Funbag. It’s not a lot of structure, but it keeps us honest. This week, though, we faced a Funbag que...