dea Page 24 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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...

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...

The Fictional Hooper Bracket: Western University Region
The regional sites worked out well for Monica Wright McCall. Western University and USC are on different sides of L.A., but she’s still at home. However, if she advances to the regional final, as expected, another hometown hero might be waiting for her, the trash-talkingest king of the Venice Beach ...

NCAA prospects who could turn into NBA All-Stars
As March Madness kicks off in a few days, the next class of NBA regulars will play in their final college games before transitioning into pre-draft prep, doing everything they can to hear their name called higher on June 23. Most of the top prospects for this summer’s draft will display their talent...

Chris Finch is the NBA’s Coach of the Year
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ surge up the NBA standings has been a warm fire during another frigid winter. For the past decade, this has been an utterly moribund franchise. The time was nearing for Karl-Anthony Towns to begin asking for an escape hatch as his super-max contract approached its expirat...

HEAR ME OUT! Maxey, Harden, and Embiid make up the best Big 3 in the NBA
The term “Big 3” gets tossed around like nothing nowadays. I mean, prior to the season, Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. were being considered a “Big 3" by some outlets. To say any team in the NBA has a true “Big 3” is questionable, but in just six games with James Harden Philadelp...

Coach K goes out with a whimper
Mike Krzyzewski coached his final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday night, and North Carolina spoiled the party, knocking off fourth-ranked Duke, 94-81, and disappointing everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Terrell Owens, who took the weird step of publicly admitting to rooting for Duke....

Kliff Kingsbury has never accomplished anything
The Arizona Cardinals are a team on the verge of ruin, draped in Gucci. Their situation appears ideal from the outside looking in, but underneath the aesthetic of an exhilarating No. 1 overall pick and a stacked offense is a team who took a dirt nap after their 10-2 start. Going 1-5 in a crucial por...

Sports Illustrated thinks the 49ers should trade George Kittle...explain yourself
San Francisco 49ers’ Twitter woke up this past Saturday and chose violence....

Memphis Grizzlies are the NBA’s March Madness Contenders
A self-made superstar has propelled the Memphis Grizzlies’ upward trajectory....

Nate McMillan’s tenure with the Hawks is downright Thibs-ian
The Hawks are lucky the Knicks are so disappointing or Stephen A. Smith would be melting down about them instead. The team that ended the Ben Simmons era in Philly, banished Julius Randle to a place from which he has yet to return, and competed with eventual NBA championship Milwaukee in the Eastern...

NBA Power Tankings: Who's No. 1 (No. 30)?
Oh goodie, misery. The last portion of the NBA season kicked off Thursday, and that means Cancun is in sight for at least 10 franchises. With their seasons already in the blender, they might as well add ice, Cointreau, Casamigos, agave, and an FT of lime juice before kicking back in the training poo...

Where will these quarterbacks go?
I can’t remember an offseason that was filled with so much uncertainty for so many of the game’s elite signal-callers. It’s not just the big names, too. Several mid-tier starters and quarterbacks with Super Bowl experience are on the trade block, as well. With many of these teams looking to replace ...

No one is prepared for the Florida Panthers to be this good
Mason Marchment had his first career hat trick Friday night, leading the Florida Panthers to a 6-2 rout of the Minnesota Wild in a game that could be a Stanley Cup Final preview....

So the Phoenix Suns are really good in clutch situations
The ability to come away victorious in close games is a great way to determine a team’s championship viability. The final five minutes of a close is when we get to see each team’s talent and coaching at the forefront. It’s when we get our best approximation of a team’s ceiling, and by golly, the Pho...

The Knicks are living a regression to the mean nightmare
I know I spend way too much of my time mocking the plight of New York Knick fans and their undeserved cockiness, but Thursday night’s fiasco felt like a turning point. They may finally be devoid of hope. For the third time in their last seven games, the Knicks squandered a lead of 20-points or mor...

Kupp was phenomenal this season, but he’s not the best WR in the league, yet
I know he had an amazing, arguably perfect year, but let’s chill out on the talk of Cooper Kupp being the greatest receiver in the game....

The Lakers might want to look into trading Anthony Davis after the season
The Lakers have been on the struggle bus all season long. Now the idea of the team trading Anthony Davis has been broached, and it might make more sense than people think. Stephen A. Smith talked about this on First Take and made some valid points. ...

Coach K’s succession mistake was bigger than choosing Scheyer over Amaker
Hours before Coach K’s dizzy spell sent him to the locker room in Duke’s win over Wake Forest, excerpts from Ian O’Connor’s upcoming book, Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski” detailed a brief power struggle within Duke last year over Coach K’s plans to name his replacement. O’Connor’s in...

The path to an NBA championship is increasingly volatile
Neil Young gets credit for the line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” but Kurt Cobain made it infamous. That dichotomy stuck with me, and it’s impossible not to see it in sports....