basketball Page 70 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Our Conference Mock Draft: SEC Edition
With the snake-draft format, I was the only one forced to make every selection in pairs. I focused on the rivalries that make college sports great to a fault, which got harder as the draft went along. I more than held my own, starting with a heavy hitter and securing one of the most underrated rival...

The Charlotte Hornets have been linked to Russell Westbrook, Kemba Walker, and Isaiah Thomas this offseason — why?
Five years after Michael Jordan infamously told the world that “the ceiling is the roof,” his team looks to still be as confused as we are....

The two trains of thought are colliding on the Kevin Durant-Jaylen Brown trade
The Boston Celtics have reached their offseason garden of forking paths. After falling short in the NBA Finals, they now seem willing to break up their young tandem, and potentially a fulcrum of their asphyxiating defense. ...

How do you foul out in a Drew League game?
NBA stars have largely disappeared from the Rucker Park, Barry Farms and Drew League runs of the past they used to regularly lace up for. LeBron James’ 42-point show at The Drew League a week ago was a clarion call for his NBA peers. After two years of being disrupted by the pandemic, the Drew Leagu...

Karl-Anthony Towns saying ‘championship or bust’ was more for his teammates than the media
It’s always a good idea to consider all answers when an athlete opts to give a boneheaded response to a reporter. In some instances, the player goes off the rails on their own volition. In other cases, it’s a lose-lose situation, and Karl-Anthony Towns is forced to pick between getting scorched by t...

Which state can field the best starting 5?
Now that the Warriors have returned to glory post-Durant, NBA fans just survived one of the most unbearable periods of the NBA. One filled with superteams and razor-thin parity between the three to four coastal teams with stacked talent (Warriors, Lakers, Nets), and the rest of the small-market team...

Nonsensical arguments are only cute when they’re harmless, Chuck
A few months ago, amongst the very early Saudi golf league discussions and defections, Charles Barkley said that he gets it — “If somebody gave me $200 million, I’d kill a relative,” he told Pat McAfee. “Even one I like.”...

Things are changing in baseball
Black baseball is coming back....

Carl Nassib came out to help a movement push forward
When Ryan O’Callaghan decided to come out as openly gay, for him it was supposed to be the end of the world. He thought that he would lose everything. His family, his friends, his career, it would all be over with so his plan in 2011 was to kill himself after the conclusion of his NFL career. ...

Bring Brittney back: Griner needs to return to the U.S. ASAP
Brittney Griner is not forgotten, as she sits in a Russian jail cell after pleading guilty to having a tiny amount of cannabis oil in her luggage after playing basketball for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the WNBA offseason....

LeBron James told the truth about Brittney Griner and Boston… people got mad — in other news, water is wet
The first step is always the hardest because people hate admitting their faults, especially in a place like America where denial is a part of this country’s DNA....

Danny Ainge has turned the Utah Jazz into a League Pass offseason team
Now in his third decade as a general manager or team president, Danny Ainge is in the next stage of what’s been a blessed NBA existence. As a supporting player on a pair of championship Celtics teams, he was one of the league’s first 3-point specialists, and reached the NBA Finals with Portland, the...

Stubbornness and health — that’s all Russell Westbrook has left
Short guards are notorious for aging poorly in the NBA. When quickness is your best asset, losing a step can be fatal. Only the craftiest players — think Jason Kidd, or Chris Paul — can remain effective. Whether it’s changing their playing style, using so many defensive tricks it borders on dirty pl...

NBA player movement junkies stuck smoking roaches this offseason
Rudy Gobert being the biggest name to change teams during free agency made this iteration feel like an overhyped, under-delivered trade deadline. While there’s still quite a bit of time left in the offseason, all but a star is running it back with last year’s team. Unless the Brooklyn Nets find a tr...

We fixed the college conferences... you're welcome
The irony of all the bellyaching about constant player movement and the free market from the NCAA and its institutions is that they aren’t even loyal to their conference partners. Those same athletic programs get a buck dangled in front of them and dive into a national conference transfer portal of ...

Steve Nash was a lame duck head coach from the start in Brooklyn but now it’s time to put him out of his misery
The Brooklyn Nets might as well hand head coach Steve Nash his walking papers now. The level of respect the locker room has for coach Nash feels at an all-time low, which says a lot. Nash never had control of the team, which was highlighted over the weekend following an NBA summer league game. ...

Even from a Russian jail cell, Brittney Griner was the MVP of WNBA All-Star Weekend
CHICAGO — Some things are impossible to ignore....

The Jazz wouldn’t say it, but Donovan Mitchell’s days in Utah are likely numbered
Danny Ainge gave no tells during the Utah Jazz summer league press conference on Saturday. The Jazz team president answered, maybe, three questions during the whole session, leaving most of the talking to General Manager Justin Zanik....

There’s a no-pads football league and surprisingly, not everyone is concussed
Football had a health epidemic on its hands long before COVID-19 was a thing. Concussions, brain injuries and CTE have ravaged the sport, with affects touching every level of the sport. Yup, any Pop Warner tackle-football league can be just as at risk as the well-compensated rosters of the NFL....

The Big3 needs a fix — here's an idea
A gray-bearded, 46-year-old Cuttino Mobley playing basketball, by itself, is a little interesting, but not a needle-mover....