cia Page 105 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

LeBron is gunning for the scoring title because the Lakers are irrelevant
The Lakers are the hottest kind of garbage right now. The kind of refuse you smell on Bourbon Street the day after Mardi Gras. They’re 10 games below .500, sitting in ninth place, and fighting for a final chance to disappoint their home crowd in the first of possibly two play-in games. Russel Westbr...

Social athlete-fan interactions keep getting worse
Player fan relationships moved into an entirely new realm over a decade ago when social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter began to pop up. Not long after came Instagram and later TikTok. These platforms have become staples in our lives, not just in the United States but around the ...

A tribute to the omnipresent NBA stars who never played a minute
Let’s pour one out for the lost souls of the 2021-22 NBA season. This season was a void on their resumes for a select few stars. An entire missed season can be an opportunity to step back, reevaluate and return for a bounce-back campaign. Or they can smack into the 2023 season like porcelain against...

This Kyrie situation is starting to feel like the Mayor of New York is trying to beat him in a game of one-on-one
I know this is March Madness and NFL Free Agency season, but the NBA Playoffs start in less than 30 days. That last, and most entertaining, mile of the NBA season, but maximum entertainment value is only achieved if all of the stars are playing. That appears to still be in jeopardy with Kyrie Irving...

Hornets sign Isaiah Thomas for the rest of the season
These last few years have been tough for Charlotte Hornets guard Isaiah Thomas. He’s been on nothing but 10-day contracts recently, and after consecutive 10-day deals in Charlotte, the Hornets have decided to keep Thomas on for the remainder of the year....

College hockey is just as mad in March
You and I have probably been spending the last week the same way, staring at our monitors watching St. Peter’s destroy any chance we had at winning our office bracket challenge. We’ve been so enticed by the upsets, bracket busters, and magical run by Michigan (with Juwan Howard returning to the side...

We all know Liverpool can’t win the Quadruple, but what my book presupposes…
To say winning the Quadruple–the League Cup, the FA Cup, the Champions League, and the Premier League–is a dream isn’t accurate. No fan ever really thinks of it before a season starts, or really before even February. It’s beyond fantasy. It’s not something you’d ever give the time of day. Perhaps En...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: Venice Beach Regional - Round 2
The first round of the Venice Beach Regional went mostly according to the seedings, with an easily predicted upset (12-seed Buggs beating the 5-seed Pound in a Space Jam rematch), and one I didn’t see coming (13-seed Clarence Withers toppling 4-seed Quincy McCall). At the top of the bracket, Billy H...

Don’t discuss Lia Thomas without mentioning how Caster Semenya was treated
Labeling Lia Thomas as a lightning rod is an understatement....

The return of the Celtics
It wasn’t long ago that the Boston Celtics were viewed as one of the more underachieving teams in the NBA this season. ...

Say Goodbye to J. Crossover
Damn, nobody in the NBA needed a possible 15 points in 12 minutes waiting on their bench for the playoffs?...

Golden State’s good, bad, and ugly have all been on display
The Golden State Warriors’ penchant for losing games they have in hand is almost becoming legendary. They’re the fastest gunslingers in the West, but they could teach a masterclass in shooting themselves in the foot on too many occasions this season. On Sunday night, these Warriors had a victory in ...

I MF’d Barcelona
There’s no hiding, not after yesterday. Not after Barcelona, just months ago the biggest figure of fun in world soccer, waltzed into the Bernabeu, and kicked eight different kinds of shit out Madrid to the tune of 4-0. It could have been 8-0 or 10-0. It probably should have been 5-0 or 6-0. This was...

The people who wanted Juwan Howard and Penny Hardaway fired a few months ago… where’d they go?
What started with a press conference and a “postgame scuffle” has turned into predictable praise. Because when you win, people conveniently forget that just a few weeks earlier they wanted you unemployed....

Russell Westbrook’s latest incident with heckler on Toronto street highlights serious issue for the NBA
This has probably been the most challenging season of Russell Westbrook’s 14-year career in the NBA. Teaming up with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Lakers has proven to be an experiment not worth repeating next season. ...

After an all-time bad freshman campaign, where does Emoni Bates go from here?
Jalen Duren and Chet Homgren’s matchup in the Round of 32 provided a preview of two future lottery picks in the upcoming NBA Draft. Holmgren and Duren didn’t exactly light it up, but they gave scouts a glimpse of two future franchise cornerstones....

LeBron James passes Karl Malone in quest to becoming NBA’s scoring GOAT
LeBron James moved one step closer to the ultimate goal of becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer on Saturday night when he passed Karl Malone for second on the list. James posted point number 36,929 of his career in a 127-119 loss to the Wizards in Washington. He scored the basket on a layup in...

The Cavs have again swept up the ashes left by LeBron’s departure, and built something impressive
They did it again, damn it. The Cleveland Cavaliers have somehow avoided the hellish purgatory typically levied against small-market teams in between superstar stints. The first time LeBron James left, after an initial seven-year stretch with Cleveland, it only took four seasons and four top-four Lo...

<i>Winning Time</i> Episode 3: 'The Best Is Yet To Come'
Damn, even legendary Chick Hearn is a bastard? Winning Time is hell-bent on tearing down all the NBA totems. Even the adored voice of the Lakers for 40-plus years, Hearn, is caught calling black security guards “gorillas.” Writers Max Borenstein and Rodney Barnes show us the circus behind the curtai...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: Hickory Region
Welcome to the old-head section of the bracket. There’s a lot of striped socks and short shorts in this region, so it’s only right that these games are played in the dusty gym in Hickory, Ind. JImmy Chitwood catches a break getting to play at home, but he’s not the upset that is looming in this regi...