basketball Page 173 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Magic Johnson Visits <i>First Take</i>, Talks A Whole Bunch Of Shit About Lakers GM Rob Pelinka
Former Los Angeles Lakers president and current Twitter user Magic Johnson joined ESPN’s First Take this morning to talk about his embarrassing exit from the team, the sorry state of the franchise headed into a critical summer, and the confusing power structure within the organization. Johnson doesn...
Kevin Durant Has Logged On
The biggest downside—or upside, depending on your point of view—to Kevin Durant’s clearly unmild calf injury is that he has more time to spend online. He was already extremely online, even if you’re only counting his main and not his dozen burners, but injured Durant has extra time to contemplate hi...
Portland Wronged The Jail Blazers More Than The Jail Blazers Wronged Portland
Late last year I attended a jersey release party thrown by the Portland Trail Blazers and Trillblazin, a Trail Blazers-centric independent clothing concern. The Cleaners, a gallery in Portland’s Pearl District, was flooded with people looking to get free t-shirts and tote bags, and looking at a doze...
This Is Probably As Likable As Draymond Green Is Ever Going To Get
The Golden State Warriors were able to overcome an 18-point deficit, and Meyers Leonard playing the game of his career, to take Game 3 from the Trail Blazers in Portland, 110-99. The defending champs now hold a historically insurmountable 3-0 series lead thanks to impressive performances from Steph ...
Lamar Odom Says He Used "A Giant, Rubber, Black Cock" To Pass His Drug Test For The 2004 Olympics
Lamar Odom was in a bit of a pickle in 2004. He had accomplished a lifelong dream in getting named to the Team USA Olympic basketball roster set to go to Athens that summer. All he had to do to officially join the team was pass a drug test a few days after he got the call. The problem was that he’d ...
Tyreke Evans Kicked Out Of NBA For Drug Policy Violation
This afternoon, the NBA announced that Pacers guard and former rookie of the year Tyreke Evans has been “dismissed and disqualified from the league for violating the terms of the NBA/NBPA Anti-Drug Program.” The league said he will be eligible to apply for reinstatement in two years....
Andre Iguodala's Hands Are Still Crazy
I’m not saying it’s a good thing that one of the top five basketball players in the world isn’t healthy enough to play in the Western Conference Finals, but without Kevin Durant (or DeMarcus Cousins, to a lesser extent), the Golden State Warriors lose a lot of the baggage they’ve picked up as the vi...
Trail Blazers Solve Many Of Game 1's Problems, Still Narrowly Fall To The Warriors
The Portland Trail Blazers made a real contest out of Game 2 of their Western Conference Finals series against the Golden State Warriors. After getting blown out in Game 1, head coach Terry Stots rejiggered his lineups and—thank God—his defensive approach, and the result was a 15-point halftime lead...
The Las Vegas Aces Swung A Huge Trade For Liz Cambage
The best big in the WNBA is on the move to what had been one of the league’s worst teams. Australian scoring champ Liz Cambage has received the trade from Dallas that she requested, though it won’t be to her reported favored team, the Los Angeles Sparks. She’ll go instead to the rebuilding Las Vegas...
The Mastermind Behind The College Admissions Scandal Used To Be A Crazy Middle School Basketball Coach
The members of a middle school basketball team that represented a Jewish Community Center in Omaha, Nebraska, were not expecting the 2001 season to be an auspicious one. The previous season had produced mediocre results, and there was no reason to expect much of an improvement going forward. That al...
Boban Marjanovic, Who Was Very Pumped To Be In <i>John Wick 3</i>, Kicked A Stuntman Very Far
Over at the Wall Street Journal, Ben Cohen has an extremely enjoyable breakdown of Boban Marjanovic’s star turn in John Wick 3. At 7-foot-3 and 290 pounds, Boban, then with the Clippers, was handpicked to play a large assassin in a library fight scene alongside Keanu Reeves—and for much of the shoot...
Brook Lopez Leads The Bucks Over Kyle Lowry And The Raptors, Just As We All Saw Coming
In an epic matchup of global basketball superstars, Brook Lopez led his top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks over Kyle Lowry and the second-seeded Toronto Raptors, 108–100, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Lowry led the Raptors to an early lead and kept them in front for the first three quarters, b...
Pascal Siakam Reduces "Splash Mountain" To Rubble With Savage Dunk
Seems like Bucks scrapper Ersan Ilyasova thought he’d have more help in the paint when he overplayed the right hand of Raptors forward Pascal Siakam, in the first quarter of Wednesday night’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. In an unfortunate coincidence, it seems like Bucks center Brook “Sp...
Stephen A. Smith Wrings Emmy-Worthy Performance Out Of Knicks' Lottery Agony
The day after the tragicomic New York Knicks were denied the opportunity to draft Zion Williamson, a nation alternately laughing at more Knicks misery and consoling those who got their hopes up turned their eyes to the cranky bard of Knicks angst: Stephen A. Smith....
If The Pelicans Don't Deserve Zion Williamson, Every Other Team Deserves Him Less
When the New Orleans Pelicans landed the right to seize the beginning of Zion Williamson’s basketball career, the reaction was swift, predictable and consistent: “What did those people do to deserve such a prize?”...
Steph Curry Reminds The Trail Blazers Just How Terrifying He Can Be
Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals had a familiar look for anyone who’s watched many Golden State Warriors home games during the Steph Curry era. The Warriors held the tough and determined Trail Blazers at a comfortable arm’s length for most of the night, and then just sort of cruised out of vi...
The NBA Would've Been Better Off Rigging The Draft Lottery
The NBA’s new odds format did the job of scrambling the draft order. Four teams played especially horrendous basketball last season, and of those four teams, three were bounced out of the draft’s top four selections. This was satisfying. The Cavaliers, represented by Nick Gilbert, dropped to fifth,...
Zion Williamson Is The Pelicans' Reward For Wasting Anthony Davis
The Knicks, Pelicans, Grizzlies, and Lakers all had a shot at Zion Williamson heading into the final reveals of the NBA Draft Lottery, and the sensational Duke forward might have gotten stuck in the most disastrous possible situation. The New Orleans Pelicans—who had a six percent chance of winning ...
If John Beilein Is Such A Good Person, Why Was He A College Basketball Coach?
Longtime Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein announced yesterday that he’s leaving the university to take over as coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s a move plenty of other college coaches have made before, but the departure of Beilein—reportedly beloved, supposedly clean, and, at 66, d...