ff Page 469 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Kobe Bryant Guarantees The Lakers Will Make The Playoffs
What do Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Pau Gasol, and Metta World Peace have in common with Chris Mihm, Chucky Atkins, Lamar Odom, and Caron Butler? If the season ended today, those would be the only two supporting casts in Kobe Bryant's career with which he didn't make the postseason. One of these rost...


Tim Tebow Cancels Speaking Engagement At Dallas Hate Church
The First Baptist Church of Dallas was all set to welcome Tim Tebow for a little talk on April 28, but then the thoughts of the megachurch's pastor, Robert Jeffress, made their way to the heathen media, which was all too eager to spread the word....

Lindy Ruff Fired As Buffalo Sabres Coach After 16 Years
When Lindy Ruff was hired as Sabres coach in the summer of 1997, Nail Yakupov was three years old, Mario Lemieux was the reigning Art Ross winner, and Teemu Selanne was already a veteran. Now, in the middle of his 15th season, Ruff has been fired....

Carl Pavano's Freak Spleen Injury Nearly Killed Him
Live by the freak injury, nearly die by the freak injury: On January 12, Carl Pavano slipped on some ice outside his Vermont home, fell onto the handle of his snow shovel, and after taking a moment to recover, went about his business until he couldn't anymore:...

Jeffrey Loria Told Jose Reyes To "Get A Nice House In Miami" Four Days Before Trading Him And Decimating The Marlins' Roster
We knew that the Marlins had given Jose Reyes “verbal assurances” that they wouldn’t trade him, but yesterday brought a new report about the exact content of those promises and when the Marlins were making them. In particular, walking pair of conspicuously expensive sunglasses Jeffrey Loria told Jos...

Will Eating Decades-Old Athlete Candy Bars Kill You? A Taste Test
"You're not going to eat it, are you?" the eBay seller asked, after we had completed our purchase. "People have been asking me if they can eat it, and that's probably not a good idea."...

Here's A Perfectly Executed "Miss The Free Throw, Score The Putback" To Send A Game To 3OT
Let's set the scene. A D-III game last night, between No. 2 Amherst and No. 3 Middlebury. The second overtime, and Amherst is down three. Guard Willy Workman tried a desperation three, but he's fouled—only the ref rules the foul came before the shot....

Did Vince Young Take Out A High-Interest Loan To Pay For His Own $300,000 Birthday Party?
So that lawsuit pitting Vince Young against both his former agent and his former financial planner is going pretty much as amicably as we told you it would. Young, who's been out of the NFL since August and is back yawning his way through classes at the University of Texas, is suing Ronnie Peoples, ...

ESPN Writer Trumpets The Splendor Of Hockey Game He Left Early
Jeff MacGregor, a very fine columnist for ESPN and author of this classic piece of participatory journalism, has a meditation today on the particular joys of ice hockey, a game he grew up playing. MacGregor is an odd bird at ESPN. He never shouts, and he never trolls, and largely for those reasons i...

Blake Griffin Switches Hands Mid-Dunk
This is reminiscent of (but not nearly as pretty as) Michael Jordan switching hands in Game 2 of the 1991 Finals against the Lakers. It's not as fluid and obvious as Jordan, but that same hesitation is there and, anyway, Griffin's game has never been about pretty. It's about power and this is what...

Illinois Shocks No. 1 Indiana On A Last-Second Layup
This is how you gain and then lose a No. 1 ranking in a span of five days. Illinois's Tyler Griffey's uncontested lay-up at the buzzer sealed a huge win over top-ranked Indiana, a game in which the Hoosiers were up 11 with 6:30 remaining. ...

Chandler Parsons Wants The World To Know That Blake Griffin, Ball Tapper, Tapped His Balls Last Month
The video above is from several weeks ago, when the Clippers played the Rockets in Houston, but it only now came to our attention because Chandler Parsons just tweeted it in our direction so we would see it:...

The Steven Soderbergh Experience: Brilliant, Modest, Fiercely Intelligent, Ultimately Disappointing
"I was watching one of those iconoclast shows on the Sundance Channel. Jamie Oliver said Paul Smith had told him something he hadn't understood until very recently: 'I'd rather be No. 2 forever than No. 1 for a while.' Just make stuff and don't agonize over it. Stop worrying about being No. 1. I s...

One-Handed Safety Makes One-Handed Interception
Identical twin brothers Shaquem and Shaquill Griffin committed to UCF today, but the two DBs—Shaquem's a safety, Shaquill's a cornerback—were on the field for one final high school game last night. The International Bowl, pitting American prep stars against the world's best, saw Shaquem dive for t...

What Time Isn't The Super Bowl?
Check your TV—no Super Bowl, at least not right now. There wasn't a Super Bowl yesterday. We can pretty much guarantee there won't be a Super Bowl throughout this entire morning, or any time after today for quite a while....
![Michael Kidd-Gilchrist Left The Court On A Stretcher With His Neck In A Brace [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/Image_Not_Found_1x_qjofp8.png)
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist Left The Court On A Stretcher With His Neck In A Brace [UPDATE]
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist's head collided with teammate Jeff Taylor's knee tonight during a game in Houston, and Kidd-Gilchrist didn't get back up. As the announcers noted, his head didn't hit the floor when he fell, but it's hard not to fear the worst when a player leaves the court partly immobilize...

Pro Football Hall Of Fame Calls Up Sapp, Parcells, Ogden, Allen and Carter
The NFL's next Hall of Fame class, just announced, has a few dudes the TV made famous. There's Bill Parcells, who made a coaching career of winning two Super Bowls with the Giants and then convincing other teams believe he might ever do it again; Cris* Carter, who just proved that even Jerry Rice Li...

Is The NFL Rigging The System To Put An Unqualified Referee In The Super Bowl?
Jerome Boger will referee the Super Bowl. Jerome Boger probably doesn't deserve to referee the Super Bowl. Football Zebras, a site devoted solely to NFL officiating, reported on Jan. 20 that Boger's unspectacular in-season grades for his refereeing had been mysteriously changed after the fact to mak...

The Latest Sports Stars To Show Up As <em>WWE Raw</em> Spectators: Steffi Graf And Andre Agassi
Hot on the heels of Jon Gruden's appearance at a WWE event in Tampa, here's famed tennis love couple Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi catching last night's Raw from Agassi's hometown of Las Vegas. Graf doesn't seem so sure about the whole enterprise, while Agassi is especially excited to catch a glimps...