cia Page 69 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Second Coming of Dennis Smith Jr.
Maybe all he needed was to come home. Smith is from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is now playing with the Charlotte Hornets, just a mere three hours from his hometown. The Hornets are Smith’s fifth team in six seasons. Last year, he split time between three teams, including the Hornets. So why h...

Waiving Josh Primo demonstrates why the Spurs are still a first-rate franchise
The Spurs’ announcement that they had released Josh Primo was the ultimate Friday evening news dump that caught the entire league by surprise. Lottery picks don’t get waived heading into their second season, and definitely not an hour before tipoff for a regular season matchup without forewarning. T...

A championship that means more
It’s been a busy time for the study of what exactly championships mean. Especially in baseball, the discussion of the inherent faults of any playoff system seemingly have been under the microscope, though mostly from teams in whose favor it didn’t work (I Love LA!). In soccer, MLS is considering tin...

A decade after the Thunder traded James Harden, regret should linger
A decade after Oklahoma City traded James Harden on the eve of the 2012-13 regular season, it still stands as an atrocity upon the art of dynasty-building. As the central players involved in that deal wind down their Hall of Fame careers in bleak situations, there is no more denying it, Oklahoma Cit...

Westbrook definitely needs to be traded, but he’s far from the only reason Lakers are losing
Russell Westbrook was out Wednesday night with a hamstring injury as the Lakers were soundly defeated on the road against a Denver Nuggets squad missing Michael Porter Jr. and featuring a sub-100 percent Jamal Murray. Truthfully, the Lakers could have used Westbrook’s energy. Someone needed to stand...
![Cross Donda Academy off the list of landing spots for aspiring hoops stars [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/d6b2cba62de8c036e29798d9b9e5583e.jpg)
Cross Donda Academy off the list of landing spots for aspiring hoops stars [Updated]
Kanye West has been in the Tom Cruise Bat-shit Crazy Celebrity Zone for so long that it’s been renamed the Ye Bat-shit Crazy Celebrity Zone. I’m assuming you’ve read the anti-semitic statements by now, and saw that Jaylen Brown and Aaron Donald — like almost every other sane person/company — cut tie...

Washington Wizards trying to relive glory days of mid-2000s mediocrity
The Washington Wizards of the mid-aughts will always be remembered more for how their time together ended than the actual run itself — and for good reason. The team only won one playoff series, and that was the year before it traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler, who would make his only two all-star ...

Early returns for NBA stars… returning
While it’s too early to define the theme of this NBA season, the first week-plus has showcased stars returning from serious injuries. Damian Lillard, Zion Williamson, Jamal Murray, and Kawhi Leonard all saw their first action after lengthy absences, and the reviews have been all over the place....

Atletico Madrid kick themselves in the ass to death
Let’s give a round of applause to Atletico Madrid, for the most batshit exit from the Champions League, as well as for signaling the end of an era for their club....

The rumored MLS Playoff changes are almost there
Apparently, taking a good hard look at the fairness of your playoff format is contagious these days. ...

Will have some more of this, thank you
Tuesday night was Klay Thompson’s 651st regular-season game as a Golden State Warrior. When you add the 145 playoff games, Thompson’s been a part of 796 games in his career, and he’d never been ejected from one — until Tuesday night in Phoenix. ...

MLB needs to explain why Juan Soto is a Gold Glove finalist
A few days ago, Major League Baseball announced its finalists for the Rawlings Gold Glove Awards....

Early NBA season superlatives: Let’s hope this version of the Knicks lasts longer than ‘Bing bong!’
It’s hard to get a vibe on the NBA after one week of games. The Wizards started last 10-3, and New York fans were excitedly yelling “Bing bong!” before both came to depressing finishes. Klay Thompson didn’t return until midseason, and it looks like it may take Jamal Murray and Kawhi Leonard some tim...

It’s time for the sports world to fight back against antisemitism
Kanye West is an antisemite. And that’s not a controversial statement. Blurting out disgusting and derogatory things about Judaism and Jewish people is a repeated pattern for Ye, not one prejudiced comment swept under the rug by a press release talking about how wrong he was and how much learning he...

Ten players that teams in the 'Lose-O-Rama for Wembanyama' should ship
After the matchup between Victor Wembanyama’s Metropolitans and Scoot Henderson’s G League Ignite teams earlier this month, where the projected No. 1 and No. 2 picks faced off in must-see-TV, half the NBA should have shifted into full-on tank mode. Why meddle in mediocrity if you’re the Orlando Magi...

Is Ben Simmons the most overrated player in NBA history?
Ben Simmons fouled out again Monday night. He’s fouled out of two of his first three games as a member of the Brooklyn Nets and has nearly as many fouls as points. So far, Simmons has posted 17 points, 14 fouls, 18 rebounds, and 21 assists in three games. This is the guy who was once touted as the “...

Brittney Griner loses appeal, nine-year sentence upheld by Russian court
Today, a Russian court upheld the nine-year sentence for WNBA player Brittney Griner. Nine years for a small amount of cannabis oil in her luggage. ...

It’s not quite as bad as it seems for Jesse Marsch, but that probably won’t save him
If there were American coaches who were hoping that Jesse Marsch could be the first through the wall as a Yank managing in the big five leagues in Europe, they might be discussing a retreat right now....

The NBA’s tanking problem is more perception than reality, and a relegation system won’t fix that
During NBA Commish Adam Silver’s apology tour session with beleaguered Phoenix Suns employees this weekend, he was confronted with another concern. In addition to apologizing for suspended team Governor Robert Sarver and his decades of misconduct, Silver was also besieged by a flood of questions abo...

France may be without their spine at the World Cup, and they won’t be alone
Crowbarring a World Cup into the middle of the club season in winter was always a dumb idea, probably equal to the idea that the tournament ever could have been held in the summer in Qatar, which is what the country and FIFA were originally selling when they awarded it to Qatar (and it was literally...