embiid Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Why is no one screaming about the NBA’s MVP race yet?
There’s one unquestioned upside to the NBA’s In-Season Tournament. The endless promos and exhausting exposure to promote Adam Silver’s baby — and debate over if it’s working or if it matters — has overshadowed the usual topic de jour as we hit the quarter-season mark: The MVP race....
These are the all-time NBA starting fives
While debating politics over Thanksgiving can cause irreplaceable family fissures, debating the all-time starting fives for each NBA team holds way fewer stakes. There are many different ways to build an all-time starting five, all of which illicit strong reactions. Some people prefer to choose the ...
2023 NBA free throws percentage leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar....
Oklahoma City showed Golden State what Basketball Darwinism looks like
Victor Wembanyama has dominated so much of the rookie phenom discourse that Chet Holmgren’s gotten lost in the trees. Holmgren is finally emerging from the forest though. Scoring a commanding 36 points and hitting the game-tying three in an overtime win over the Golden State Warriors will open some ...
Zion Williamson is the NBA’s most polarizing talent
Zion Williamson is a series of contradictions. He’s a near-300-pound space mover who elevates like he’s in zero gravity. He’s both the mythic John Henry racing a machine and the steam-powered drill he beat in a race because it continuously broke down. Williamson has the build of a defensive end, but...
Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama are finishing what Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic started
If there’s anything the most recent NBA champions taught us, it’s that the center can still be the focal point of an offense. Sixty-six-million years ago, Michael Jordan’s arrival was a terraforming meteor that ended the age of the pivots and began the reign of guards. Prior to His Airness, NBA cham...
Trade talk is the nadir of sports journalism
Imagine being a Chicago Bears fan — I know empathy is hard, but just try — and going through what they did Thursday only to open ESPN on Friday and see a bunch of misguided, braindead analysts talking about trading Justin Fields. Over his past two starts, the Chicago QB is 43-for-64 for 627 yards wi...
The Beard's ego has him stuck between a Rock(et) and a Harden place
James Harden is in limbo. Last season, he was all in on taking a pay cut in an effort to give the Philadelphia 76ers cap flexibility to sign glue guys who would put them over the edge come playoff time. A year later, he’s the acetone on their franchise continuity. His constant bellyaching stemming f...
Did Joel Embiid commit to Team USA just for the tampering?
Apparently, all it takes to convince American hoops players to represent their country is an insult or a loss at the FIBAs. Whether it was Noah Lyles, the B team’s fourth-place finish, or the human instinct to ape the cool kids, Team USA looks to be loaded for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. ...
Lexi Thompson’s PGA Tour debut comes with a chance at history and to pierce through golf’s sexism
In the modern history of golf, no female has made a cut on a PGA Tour event. Only Babe Didrikson Zaharias has done it ever, playing all four rounds at the 1945 Phoenix Open, and Tucson Open. And as Lexi Thompson becomes the seventh woman to play in a PGA Tour event next week, on a sponsor’s invitati...
5 sure-fire ways James Harden can force a trade
The Philadelphia 76ers are entering one of the most important seasons in franchise history, as reigning MVP Joel Embiid desperately wants to contend, and edges ever so closer toward disgruntled. The Sixers have been a soap opera for going on five years (if not longer), and each attempt to build arou...
A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart are the WNBA’s Bird and Magic
There’s nothing worse than an ending that doesn’t offer a definite ending. Think The Sopranos cutting to black in the diner or Emmy-winning GLOW being canceled on a cliffhanger during the pandemic as the ‘94 MLB strike-shortened season of series finales. Last month, Winning Time ended with the Bosto...
Damian Lillard would just be the marquee player on another middle-of-the-pack team if traded to Toronto
A decade of experience indicates that Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri despises rebuilding. This became immediately apparent after he refused to tank for Andrew Wiggins back when he was still being referred to unironically as Canada’s “Maple Jordan” before the 2013-14 season. After watching the...
LeBron James is Team USA’s shadow GM and possibly its next director
LeBron James is back to doing what he does best, flexing those roster construction muscles as the league’s greatest shadow GM. According to Shams Charania and Joe Vardon’s report in The Athletic, an effort to recruit Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum and Draymond Green, is being...
No man is an island, unless his name is James Harden
James Harden is a walking tragedy. He should be celebrated for his ball-handling alchemy, his mentalist-grade ability to draw fouls from reluctant defenders, and of course, the bird’s nest he’s cultivated for the past decade. Instead, he’s spent most of his career getting in his own way. ...
James Harden's agent thinks we aren't paying attention
The James Harden-Philadelphia 76ers soap opera is becoming the biggest NBA storyline of the summer that looks like it’ll carry over into the 2023-24 regular season. Now, Harden’s agent, Troy Payne, is trying to sell folks on the prospects of James climbing back up the mountain to league MVP status....
The James Harden domino effect could be epic in Philly
Philadelphia is a sad basketball city at the moment. Another season has passed where the 76ers can’t get over the hump, and their two stars are unhappy with how the team is being run. Surely, this isn’t the summer anyone in the organization envisioned after Joel Embiid finally broke through to becom...
Either Kevin Garnett set Anthony Davis up to fail, or he's trolling us all
Kevin Garnett is an NBA champion, former MVP, and one of the best two-way players the league has ever produced. He’s also a loud-mouthed trash talker, and that’s meant in the most respectful way possible. Garnett talked a lot and still does. KG commented on his expectations for Los Angeles Lakers fo...
The Bengals had better hope Joe Burrow doesn’t have one of those NBA strains
Super Bowl Championship expectations are rare for the Cincinnati Bengals. Before Ja’Marr Chase was drafted they hadn’t won a playoff game since Bo Jackson played football. In 2023, the sports books have the Bengals as one of the top-five favorites to win the Super Bowl. However, they are currently d...
Doris Burke, Mike Breen, and Doc Rivers are a match made in…something
Weeks after ESPN split up the NBA’s quirkiest broadcast TRIO by inexplicably laying off Jeff Van Gundy, the suits in Bristol had a high bar to reach for the new three-man-weave in its NEXT lead broadcast team. Mike Breen was a certified starter as the voice of the Worldwide Leader’s play-by-play NBA...