fin Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NBA social media whistleblower: Login was an accident, but league needs to hire more employees [Updated]

When it comes to the NBA’s stars, Adam Silver has been open about addressing the anxiety NBA players face under the microscope. They’ve also done wonders for player rest, limiting back-to-backs. However, when it comes to the well-being of its social media employees, the league allegedly still has wo...

The 2023 Basketball Hall of Fame class represents 40 years of growth in the sport

The way that the NBA game is currently played — the spacing, position fluidity, the resting of stars during the regular season — all of that and more has been in the works for 20 years. Prioritizing 3-point shooting to maximize room for drivers and post players did not start and end with Mike D’Anto...

The budding rivalry between the Aces and Liberty is a massive win for the WNBA

Aside from the Connecticut Sun possibly playing spoiler, the current WNBA season has been conducted essentially known its champion resides in Las Vegas or Brooklyn. The Aces are putting together arguably the most impressive regular season in league history. But there’s always an asterisk. A road to ...

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...

The Los Angeles Angels are going for it because they have to

I would never make the mistake of thinking any sports team owner has any shame. The cash comes too easy, they’re far too up their own ass because they’ve convinced themselves the money they have proves what a genius they are, and they’re too far removed from the fans to really fear any public backla...

Patrice Bergeron was your favorite player’s favorite player

When Felix Hernandez won the Cy Young in 2010 while his record was only 13-12, it was seen as something of a first strike for the new way of analyzing baseball. There was no question that Hernandez was the best pitcher in the AL that year, he had a 7-WAR season for fuck’s sake, but the fact that for...

Saudis willing to pay $1 billion for Kylian Mbappé?

World Cup Group H Preview: Why can’t there be more like Morocco?

The women’s World Cup should be, and still is in a lot of ways, a celebration of how far the game has come from where it was even just four years ago. The attention is more, the players, and teams are better, the quality of play keeps rising, the anticipation grows, as does the appreciation when it ...

Trade James Harden for Grade-A role players, you coward!

When Daryl Morey says he’s not going to be irrational with a James Harden trade, he is to be trusted. We saw what happened with Ben Simmons, and the plain-clothes staring contest that resulted in Harden becoming a Philadelphia 76er. It was an arduous ordeal that festered until mid-February 2022, and...

Is Sam Howell the next great Tank Commander or Kirk Cousins redux?

Renewed hope for the Washington Commanders is on the menu in 2023. New ownership will have an opportunity to leave their imprint on the organization eventually. But for now, the direction of the Commies 2023 season rests in the relatively small hands of its anointed Tank Commander Sam Howell. Tank c...

Las Vegas Aces are the solution to the Oppenheimer-Barbie conundrum

The WNBA’s All-Star Break provided the Las Vegas Ace’s “Core 4” with a showcase for 80 percent of a historically stacked starting lineup to strut their stuff in an exhibition. On the downside, it also cracked open a conduit for the cranks to spew their usual bile. ...

Joel Embiid sends warning shot to Sixers management

The Philadelphia 76ers have advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals in five of the last six postseasons. During the Joel Embiid era, that has been their ceiling chasing that ever-elusive Eastern Conference Finals appearance, which the franchise hasn’t been featured in since 2001. Pressure cont...

Carlos Alcaraz out-Djokovic’d Novak Djokovic

There is a vision of how to beat Novak Djokovic at a major, especially at Wimbledon, and even more especially at Centre Court, where he hadn’t lost in 10 years. It’s only a vision, because so few have ever achieved it. Only Rafa Nadal and Daniil Medvedev had managed to beat Djokovic in a major in th...

NCAA treating violations with the leniency of a Boulder beat cop on 4/20

The University of Tennessee was hit with an $8 million fine, among other penalties, on Friday for “hundreds” of NCAA violations. Former coach Jeremy Pruitt and his staff committed north of 200 infractions, and while pretty much all of them weren’t a huge deal individually, when you rattle them off i...

How about some real stakes for the NBA In-Season Tourney?

If the NBA’s goal with its in-season tournament is to simply further pad its upcoming national television rights deals, that’s fine. A few more nationally televised contests will always increase the package, and the players on the floor for these games will compete. However, stars won’t change their...

Try telling Kyrie Irving that ANTA is a significant step down from Nike

Kyrie Irving held a significant place in shoe culture up until he ran his mouth and got his Nike deal revoked. The mercurial point guard (pretty sure he single-handedly turned that phrase a cliche) consistently had the most popular sneaker at the company despite his on-again, off-again relationship ...

Assessment after 2 summer league games: Victor Wembanyama is scary

Victor Wembayama’s rookie summer league didn’t have quite the immediate impact of Zion Williamson’s. There was no steal in which he wrestled the ball from the clutches of NBA starter and went Daryl Dawkins on the rim, nor an earthquake that stopped the game. What Wembayama was able to accomplish thr...

NBA fans aren’t amused by the new in-season tournament

If you’re an NBA fan, you’ve probably seen or heard about the official announcement of the new in-season tournament set to jump off in November. Those who follow The Association on social media, most notably Instagram, may have received a direct message from former NBA baller Richard Jefferson expla...

Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier’s spinoff league offers a platform for WNBA stars

Every offseason, women’s basketball’s finest head abroad to take part in leagues that run concurrently with the NBA schedule. Unfortunately, that often creates a problem for the WNBA teams that have them under contract between May and the completion of their respective seasons in early fall. That’s ...

The 15 Most Valuable Professional Sports Franchises

This story was corrected and revised on July 6, 2023. ...