basketball Page 197 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

“I said, ‘Who am I kidding?’ This guy is a great player. He’s a great kid, has a great attitude, and I’m bringing him off the bench? I just said, ‘Screw this.’” Nick Kosmider of The Athletic has a fun feature on how Mike Malone and the Nuggets made the franchise-altering decision to start Nikola Jok...

This Nightmarish Bulls Season Appears To Be Wearing On Poor Horace Grant
The Bulls lost to the Magic in Mexico City Thursday night, in a game that was mostly uneventful, apart from leading scorer and leadership council member Zach LaVine hearing an ominous pop in his lower leg on a late drive. Some interesting news came after the game, when ESPN reported that Jabari Park...

James Harden Irritated The Lakers Into A 50-Point Triple-Double
James Harden carried the sub-.500 Rockets to a much-needed win at home against the Lakers Thursday night, as Houston beat L.A. 126-111 in a game that was tight up until the last few minutes. It was a signature performance from Harden, who scored 50 points on 14-of-26 shooting and also picked up 11 a...

Suns Owner Robert Sarver Refutes Report Of Relocation Threat, Says The Suns "Are Not Leaving Phoenix"
Reports yesterday had Suns owner and overall dingus Robert Sarver threatening to relocate his shoddy-ass basketball operation to Las Vegas or Seattle if the city of Phoenix didn’t get behind a public financing plan to renovate the team’s current home. Also yesterday, Sarver was thrashed at a city co...

BONK<em></em>
This ref’s smile after LeBron bonked him with a basketball is disconcerting....

Celtics' Robert Williams Is Fine Being Called "Time Lord," But Danny Ainge Wants Better For Him
It’s always a delight to see the irony-poisoned runoff of the internet seep into real life. Consider the case of “Time Lord,” or Robert Williams, the endearing Celtics rookie who before the season had some problems getting to team functions in a punctual manner (if at all)....

Phoenix Woman Dunks On Suns Owner Robert Sarver At City Council Meeting
The Phoenix City Council was supposed to vote Wednesday on a murky proposal to give Suns owner Robert Sarver $150 million in public money for arena renovations, but the formal vote was pushed back a month, in part because the plan, which is bad, would have failed. Citizens were still able to speak t...

The Raptors Didn't Even Need Kawhi Leonard To Punk The Warriors In Oakland
Last week, the Warriors traveled to Milwaukee and avenged their early-season loss to the Bucks with ease, dispatching one of their possible Finals opponents without ever having to do to much. They clearly made a point of putting the Bucks in their place—increasingly rickety Andre Iguodala played 28 ...

Imagine Your Boss Is Michael Jordan, And Imagine He's Angry Enough To Hit You
The Hornets came back from a 12-point second-half deficit to topple the Detroit Pistons Wednesday night, by the score of 108–107. The ending was dramatic: the Hornets went on a 13–0 run to go from down 101-91 with about six minutes on the clock to up 104-101 with 47 seconds left in regulation. The ...

Spencer Dinwiddie Channels His Inner Steph Curry, Torches The 76ers
Spencer Dinwiddie is a good basketball man with a good name and a slick, good-looking offensive game. He’s spent all but the first 46 games of his four-plus years in the NBA on miserable, rebuilding Brooklyn teams, which means neither his fun basketball skills nor his delightful personality have got...

Former NBPA Union President And New Sparks Head Coach Derek Fisher Joins Up With A Shady Luxury Lending Outfit
Longtime NBA guard, controversial Players Association president, and failed Knicks coach Derek Fisher has reportedly joined up with a shady alternative lender that targets professional athletes and other “high-net-worth individuals and families” who find themselves challenged by the “burdensome and ...

Steph Curry Acknowledges Dark Side Of Moon Truthering, Says It Was A Joke
Okay, looks like this cycle has been compressed to just three days. On a Winging It podcast episode released Monday, Warriors star Steph Curry denied that man landed on the Moon. That night, right on cue, he went with the oh-so-cheeky “just asking questions” posturing:...

Report: The Clippers Desperately Want Kawhi Leonard To Know They Like Him
Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors will travel to Oakland tonight for a showdown with the suddenly healthy Golden State Warriors. As ESPN’s Brian Windhorst laid out in a report Tuesday night, nobody is more excited to attend the game than a bunch of front-office guys for the Los Angeles Clippers....

Suns Owner Robert Sarver Threatens To Move The Team If He Can't Bully Phoenix Out Of More Money
This afternoon, the Phoenix City Council is set to vote on a mysterious bill that would authorize $150 million in funding for extensive renovations to the Phoenix Suns’ arena, which was most recently remodeled in 2003. The plan was apparently unveiled less than a week ago; it involves the city payin...

Kawhi Leonard Has No Time For Your Damn Holiday Cheer
This is so good. A reporter in the scrum ahead of tonight’s Raptors-Clippers game thought it would be a good idea to ask the famously loquacious and good-humored Kawhi Leonard to recall his favorite Christmas memory. Kawhi’s answer is just the most curmudgeonly thing....

Jimmy Butler: I Pooped On My Timberwolves Teammates Even Worse Than You Thought
New 76er and true cheesebutt Jimmy Butler appeared on teammate JJ Redick’s podcast this week, where he discussed, among other things, the circumstances of his exit from the Timberwolves. That’s a terribly cursed sentence, given what it describes, but these are two provolone-ass individuals, before w...

Despised Coach Of Chicago Bulls, On Task Force Designed To Mitigate His Failings: "I'm Jacked Up"
It’s been just eight days since Fred Hoiberg got canned, opening up the Bulls head coach vacancy that was then filled by Jim Boylen. The speed with which the shit has leapt towards the fan strains credulity. But since the Bulls found themselves stuck under the thumb of this retrograde strongman, the...

Paul George's Two-Way Brilliance Has The Thunder Kicking Ass
Since starting the season 0-4—a stretch highlighted by giving up 131 points to the then-inept Sacramento Kings at home—the Oklahoma City Thunder have molted and become one of the NBA’s best teams. Blowout wins over elite teams like the Clippers and Warriors have been peppered in amid a tremendous 17...

Joel Embiid, Who Has A Migraine And Diarrhea: “I Have A Migraine<em></em> And Diarrhea”
Joel Embiid is dealing with a few ailments....