bu Page 107 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Brian Burke is the biggest fraud in the NHL
Before we pivot later today to the NHL Playoffs, we can kick a little more dirt on the regular season, and specifically, the Pittsburgh Penguins. After missing the playoffs for the first time since before the Obama administration, the Penguins fired GM Ron Hextall — rumored to be an inside agent sen...

Duke teammates’ bid on Washington Commanders relies on billion-dollar layaway plan
Instability is the core tenet of the Washington Commanders’ Dan Snyder era. It’s only appropriate that the jankiest, messiest, reprobate of a team owner in modern NFL history ends his tenure with a tinge of chaos. On Thursday, reports blasted throughout the league that Snyder had agreed to a non-exc...

Finding the NBA playoff X factors
The NBA playoffs are where superstars can add to — or subtract from — their legacies. They may come up clutch, or absolutely choke under the spotlight. The same goes for coaches. But there are always subplots around certain youngsters, role players, and unknowns who can make a name for themselves. T...

Here's which NBA playoff teams will boom or bust
NBA fans are preparing for one of the most equitable and competitive playoffs in recent memory. The lack of an active dynasty or superteam has the door open for nearly any team to make a Finals run. We’ve highlighted five teams headed toward playoff glory and five teams destined for despair. We cons...

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you tank?
The Dallas Mavericks went from the Western Conference Finals to being fined for punting on the postseason in less than a year. As a result of a decision to sit key guys and play Luka Dončić only a quarter in essentially an elimination game against the Chicago Bulls on April 7, Mark Cuban’s pockets a...

United offers to comp Demar DeRozan's daughter's flight to Miami
Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozan doesn’t want his daughter Diar to miss any more school after she attended — and possibly swung the game in the Bulls’ favor — the team’s 109-105 play-in tournament win over the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday instead of being in class. ...

How every NFL team should draft, but won't because GMs are dumb
The NFL Draft is arguably the second-biggest event on the league calendar behind the Super Bowl. Every team participates and shapes its roster for the next season. And every franchise will go into the month of May thinking it has made the right moves to get closer to a championship. But of course, o...

These NFL players have the best nicknames
Sweetness. The Refrigerator. Broadway Joe. Over the years, the NFL has seen some great players step onto the field, and some of them have garnered nicknames that fit them to a tee. A good or great nickname should explain something about the person it’s attached to. Something about their personality,...

DeMar DeRozan’s daughter drop-kicked basketball analytics
Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill said in Goodfellas that your killers “come with smiles.” The Toronto Raptors’ killer was a nine-year-old girl who surely arrived at Scotiabank Arena with a smile on her face, because her father allowed her to miss school. Once the game began though, Diar DeRozan was more rele...

Toronto sports, man
On one level, I get it. I bet Toronto is a lot like Chicago. Whenever the first warm stretch hits, you’re looking for any excuse to be outside. And most likely drunk as shit when you are. Usually that streak doesn’t hit until somewhere around Memorial Day, so to get it in April feels like you’re ste...

Be like NPR and delete Twitter — I promise you’ll be happier
What’s the first thing you do on your phone when you wake up? After turning off your alarm, how long does it take for muscle memory to take you to a social media app? Three, four swipes? Now, ask yourself: What would happen if you didn’t? You may miss out on a funny meme or the latest trend or a few...

Tampa Bay summons losing culture with return of creamsicle uniforms
If you’re a fan of throwback jerseys and nostalgia, we’ve got a treat for you. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are bringing back their swashbuckling uniforms from the early days, when they seemingly did nothing but lose. That’s right, you can call this a comeback because those wonderful creamsicle uniforms...

No one wants to get their teeth kicked through their skull by the Bruins
If the NHL ever considered instituting its own play-in tournament, and they have, and last night’s Lakers-Timberwolves what-have-ya wasn’t enough to dissuade them, then the Islanders and Penguins have recently showed the league that were they forced to waylay into each other in a single-elimination ...

The play-in is butt and the NBA is laughing at all of us
Let’s not bury the lede here. The last five to eight minutes and overtime between the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves was some of the worst basketball on offer this season, and certainly a contender for worst fare offered up in what is supposed to be an important game. Between the Lake...

The Tampa Bay Rays can sure beat the tar out of awful teams
You can only play who is on the schedule. That’s an axiom as old as baseball, and it’s mostly true. The Tampa Bay Rays got to start their season with nine games against MLB’s kids with mittens pinned to their jackets year-round, and they’ve done all they can do. Which is to beat the ever-loving piss...

Battle of the bottom of the Eastern Conference barrel
The Eastern Conference hasn’t been as wide open as the West this season, so their play-in race wasn’t nearly as exciting. There isn’t much expected from the play-in participants in the east, even though the Miami Heat were in the Eastern Conference Finals last postseason. In the east, the Milwaukee ...

Aaron Ramsdale’s fingertips may have saved the Premier League title for Arsenal
There isn’t another league that can produce the utter chaos, at least as consistently, as the Premier League can with yesterday’s 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Arsenal at Anfield. It starts with the end-to-end action, two teams waylaying into each other for various periods of the game. Which is the...

At Princeton, a turnaround one man saw coming
“I was born delusional,” said Chris Ayres, Princeton’s head wrestling coach, earlier this year. “But I think — I really do — that delusion is a good thing.” He just proved his point. At Tulsa, Oklahoma’s NCAA wrestling tournament last month, Ayres pulled off one of the least likely turnarounds colle...

Mark Cuban is not who we thought he was going to be
This past week has been the dried-out cherry on top of an expired whipped cream sundae of a 2022-23 season for the Dallas Mavericks. They entered it one game out of the play-in tournament a shade under two months after trading for Kyrie Irving. It would be easy to blame him for Mavericks’ fall, but ...
