basketball Page 90 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Luka Dončić took down Giannis Antetokounmpo yesterday, and scored big in the best NBA player argument
Remember when Luka Dončić was overweight, complaining to officials too much, and the Dallas Mavericks’ record was under .500? That was the story of Dončić and the Mavericks in December. Four months — and a Kristaps Porziņģis trade— later, the Mavericks are one of the hottest teams in the NBA. They a...

Kyrie Irving’s return to full-time has seen his numbers come back to earth
Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving had the sweetest deal of any player in recent memory for most of the season, where he only had to play half the games on the schedule due to his vaccination status....

Dawn Staley is the most important Black coach in college basketball history
You know those shirts that say, “I am my ancestors’ wildest dream”? That’s what Dawn Staley is....

Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green had a March worthy of No. 1 and No. 2 picks
Showing out in the NBA in March is not quite like hitting beautifully straight drives on the practice range, but it’s close. When there’s no pressure and fewerless consequences, it’s easy to swing free. That’s exactly what Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green did last month, giving their fans a taste of ...

Becoming Kareem
To capture the intellectual acuity of Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, an actor portraying the seven-footer would need to possess a towering level of gravitas. Winning Time creator Max Borenstein had said casting Kareem was the hardest of the Showtime Lakers. When Solomon Hughes walked through the...

UConn had nowhere to go
You couldn’t ask for much more of a premier NCAA tournament final than having the two most recent Naismith award winners in Paige Bueckers for UConn and Aliyah Boston for South Carolina square off. These don’t always live up to the occasion, and UConn has already provided one classic against N.C. St...

The top 10 clutch scorers in the upcoming NBA Playoffs
The NBA playoffs are just around the corner, and we’ve got tight races in each conference heading down the stretch. Most top teams are usually led by players who can take a game over, especially in the fourth quarter/crunch time. Some players have been left off the list for various reasons like inju...

Winning Time: ‘Piece of a Man’ explores Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s relationship with Islam
What makes Winning Time’s tapestry of stories enthralling is how it reflects the chaotic jazz of our lives. Every character is at odds against the world and themselves. Magic, Jerry Buss, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, each man is fighting a private war. For many of them, it’s a war of the spirit against the ...

Ben Simmons files grievance to get back $20 million
After a season spent off the court but directly in the glare of the national basketball media spotlight for his refusal to play with the 76ers, Ben Simmons is filing a grievance against his former team to the tune of $20 million in unpaid salary....

The entire LSU basketball team is gone
Sanctions are coming, Will Wade is gone, and the Tigers aren’t sticking around to find out what it looks like. LSU basketball might not be receiving the death penalty from the NCAA for their former coach’s infractions, but the team itself has sent the program into a virtual death spiral....

UConn has 1 focus at Final Four
It wasn’t the all-out classic that Monday in Bridgeport was, but UConn took down another No. 1 seed on Friday night, dethroning defending national champion Stanford, 63-58....

LeBron winds up playing the fool
April 1, 10:09 a.m. Pacific Time: LeBron James sends a tweet saying, “I’m out for the season officially. See y’all in the fall....

Democrats introduce bill that would put NCAA’s gender gap on notice
As the women’s Final Four kicks off tonight, the cloud looming over the NCAA only grows. Having gotten away with treating their female athletes like second-class citizens for decades, the crackdown is truly beginning, as the organization gets piled on from all sides with growing expectations to crea...

Doc Rivers needs more than motivational tactics to get through to James Harden
It only took 15 games of watching James Harden for Doc Rivers to get annoyed. After a loss against the Detroit Pistons last night — the team’s third straight — where the 76ers got all of eight points from the bench, the coach didn’t put the lack of production on them....

Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Final Four
We got an all-blueblood Final Four. I know we enjoyed Saint Peter’s, but as happy as I am for Shaheen Holloway’s new contract — of course this is yet another example of a college coach capitalizing off of his hard-playing talent for a much better job, but the Peacocks pull their home bleachers out o...

IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Cleveland Browns stand out among crowded March pack
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, where we laugh at people and organizations around the sports world because otherwise we would cry. An honorable mention for March goes out to none other than You, the reader! That’s right — You, most dearest sports media consumer, honestly believed your Marc...

It’s the Bucks’ until they say it isn’t
It’s a strange phenomenon, not exclusive to basketball, where somehow the defending champs get lost. Perhaps most people just conclude that the fatigue from a playoff run the previous season is just a bit too much to overcome. It’s doubly so for the Milwaukee Bucks, as their Finals run didn’t end un...

Shaheen Holloway is the 2022 March Madness Champ
If Duke, UNC, Kansas or Villanova are going to win another national title, we have to celebrate something besides another blueblood champion. Watching another blueblood Final Four is nauseating and almost seems antithetical to the glorified ideal of March Madness....

We need to change our perception of the NBA’s scoring title
First things first, I know LeBron James fans are going to think I’m only saying this because LeBron currently leads the scoring race, but that’s just not the case. I don’t hate LeBron. He’s the GOAT in my eyes. He’s still one of the best players in the league, and what he’s been able to do at 37 is ...

If Giannis wins his third MVP this year we can put the best player on the planet debate to rest
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo can join some elite company, should he take home his third NBA MVP award at the end of the regular season. If he can edge out Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić, we can finally lay the best player in the world debate to rest. We can’t continue to deny Antetoko...