basketball Page 178 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
James Harden Cooks His Spiciest Meatball Yet
At this point in James Harden’s absurd season, a 27-point first quarter is not all that shocking on its own. The dude has already logged 57 or more points five times in 2019, and the Rockets’ offense is weirdly at its most effective when Harden gets to step back across the three-point line to his he...
Report: Big Baller Brand Co-Founder Alan Foster Ousted Amid Suspicions About Missing $1.5 Million
According to a report from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Paula Lavigne, Big Baller Brand majority owner Lonzo Ball has severed all business ties with Alan Foster—one of the company’s co-founders and longtime family friend to the Balls—after he was unable to account for $1.5 million that went missing o...
Stop Excusing Tom Izzo’s Assholery<em></em>
The only thing more predictable than Tom Izzo going apeshit on one of his own players, to the point where MSU freshman forward Aaron Henry’s teammates had to actively restrain the head coach, was the parade of dipshits and assholes rushing to Izzo’s defense and framing any criticism of his sideline ...
I Can't Stop Looking At This Photo Of Marcus Smart Nonchalantly Shoving Joel Embiid
Joel Embiid stuck out an elbow and a foot, possibly maliciously and definitely in the sort of passive-aggressive way that players sometimes do this stuff to each other; Marcus Smart crashed into them, and then onto the floor; Smart got up and shoved Embiid onto the floor; and Getty’s Mitchell Leff s...
Jimmer Fredette Will Forsake God Status In China To Play For The Phoenix Suns
After scoring his ass off for four years at BYU, Jimmer Fredette was selected with the 10th overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft. At the time, the current best scorer in the world was calling him the the best scorer in the world. But across five seasons, four teams, and 235 NBA games, Fredette went 41...
Cavs Rookie Collin Sexton Has Improved Because His Teammates Started Yelling At Him
It’s silly to come down too hard on a rookie season on a roster as desolate and tumble-weeded as this season’s Cavs, and perhaps even dumber for a point guard, given the position’s unforgiving learning curve. Few can emerge from their teens, get plopped into an NBA starting role, and start making al...
50 Years Ago, The <i>Washington Post</i> Started One Of The Biggest Controversies In D.C. Basketball History
The Washington Post released its final rankings for the 2018-2019 high school basketball season earlier this week. DeMatha, a school with perhaps the most storied program in the country, ended up in the top spot in the historically hoops-crazy D.C. region for what was officially the 28th time....
The Hater's Guide To March Madness
The NCAA Tournament is what you make of it. So is everything else, obviously, but while the tournament is objectively just what it is—a sloppy whirlwind fortnight of stressed-out teenagers just absolutely freaking the fuck out while playing the most important basketball games of their lives—it is al...
Joel Embiid Calls Himself "Best Defensive Player" And "Most Unstoppable Player" In NBA, Might Not Be Wrong
The 76ers came back from a 15-point second-half deficit to beat the visiting Celtics Wednesday night, behind a monstrous performance from the huge and unstoppable Joel Embiid. Embiid—whose conditioning, at the moment, is less than great—played more than 41 minutes, the second most he’s played in a g...
Marcus Smart Ejected From Celtics-76ers For Shoving Joel Embiid Quite A Long Way
Early in the third quarter of Wednesday night’s Celtics-76ers game, Marcus Smart was hit with a soft whistle for contesting a pass to Joel Embiid near the top of the key, with the Celtics up 11. On the reset, perhaps out of annoyance over Smart raising a stink about the foul, or perhaps sensing that...
D'Angelo Russell Played The Quarter Of His Life To Humiliate The Kings
Down 25 points to start the final frame in Sacramento, the Nets looked dead, their fight for a more secure playoff footing just as hopeless. The Kings were supposed to be one of the few uncomplicated games remaining on their schedule; they still have to tackle the top five teams in the East in the h...
Markelle Fultz Shooting Form Update: Rehabbing With Donald And Goofy
In his introductory press conference after being traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Orlando Magic, way back on February 7, Markelle Fultz announced that his rehabilitation from chronic shoulder crabmeatitis would continue indefinitely in sunny California. The Magic were cool with this plan, e...
Bubble Teams Belong In Hell
Today, we’re talking about chicken pot pie, the NCAA tournament, dirty belts, and more....
Here's A Cool Play The Trail Blazers Use To Ambush Unsuspecting Opponents
In the second quarter of an eventual home win over the Pacers, Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts dialed up a delicious little inbounds play to get reserve center Enes Kanter a point-blank look at the basket. The play involves very little movement and trickery, and mostly relies on two tall dudes...
Steph Curry Busts Out Of A Slump With A Damn 60-Footer
Steph Curry opened up Monday night’s road game in San Antonio freezing cold, by his standards. He missed seven of his first eight shots, including all four of his three-point attempts. He blew a point-blank layup, and had another slapped off the glass, and bricked a wide open three from the top of t...
How Not To Write About Kobe Bryant
SLAM magazine has a cover story about Kobe Bryant out today titled “MAMBA 101: Welcome to Kobe Bryant’s Next Chapter [book emoji].” Tzvi Twersky’s profile is half sycophantic run-through of Bryant’s new projects as a self-appointed visionary-style filmmaker and storyteller and half soft-focus look ...
Zion Williamson—And I Can't Stress This Enough—Could Rebound Me Off The Back Iron And Dunk Me Through The Floorboards
The rate of improvement seems frankly unsustainable. But Zion Williamson, who was once known for his comically improbable high school basketball highlight reels, is now cutting similarly ridiculous ones at the damn ACC Tournament. Can he just keep scaling up to new plateaus of competition? It’s hard...
![ESPN Apologizes For Releasing The Women’s NCAA Tournament Bracket Hours Too Early [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/nj3mzwjzmlyhb4xdvof5.jpg)
ESPN Apologizes For Releasing The Women’s NCAA Tournament Bracket Hours Too Early [Update]
If you tuned in to ESPNU this afternoon for a show called Bracketology, you apparently got an added bonus: A reveal of most of the bracket for this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament!...
Giannis And Embiid, Just A Couple Of Giant Space Monsters Smashing Everyone Else Into Hell
The Bucks played the 76ers yesterday, in Milwaukee. The game had an outcome; the outcome had no effect on the standings. I am here to call to your attention the two giant space monsters, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid, who combined for 92 points and 31 rebounds in the game and made everybody ...
LeBron James Suffers Latest Humiliation At The Hands Of Mario Hezonja
It was all set up for LeBron James, nearing the end of a crappy first season with the Los Angeles Lakers, to have another one of his moments. He loves to craft highlights on the Knicks’ home floor, and to talk afterwards about how much “the Mecca” means to him as—as a student of basketball history o...