haliburton Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The NBA’s in-season tourney courts are predictably a clown show
There may be no better analogy for how shallow the NBA’s new in-season tournament is than the league’s gaudy courts. The colorful floors were thrown together as a way to differentiate regular season games from in-season tournament games even though they still count toward the regular season. In addi...
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...
Buddy Hield is the type of player who could tilt the odds in a contender’s favor
If there’s any NBA trading block resident who deserves to transition to a contender this season, it’s not James Harden or Damian Lillard, it’s newcomer Buddy Hield. At least Dame Time has advanced to the brink of a Conference Finals. Hield has never even sailed the postseason waters. His 548 games p...
Don’t sleep on the men’s team that America is sending to the FIBA World Cup
Since NBA players have been permitted to play in international competition, the United States has never sent over a unit like the one they are sending to Asia later this month for the FIBA World Cup. Not a single player on this roster has made an All-NBA team — a first since American pros were allow...
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...
The $100M questions for the NBA free agents who cashed in
Before anybody evaluates contracts or shouts that Fred VanVleet is overpaid from the mountaintop, let’s take a moment to congratulate all of the free agents who just guaranteed themselves and their families generational wealth. Tyrese Haliburton, Jerami Grant, Desmond Bane, Kyrie Irving, Cam Johnson...
Team USA Basketball needs to bring back multi-year commitments
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it does break, fix it the same way you did after you originally broke it. Grant Hill, this is for you....
Taylor Swift moving on...to Austin Reaves?
Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves played his way into a big bag of money during the team’s postseason run to the Western Conference Finals. Reaves became a full-time starter and a big-shot threat bailing the Lakers out in the playoffs on more than one occasion. Because of his play in the postse...
The final Brick for Vic stock report: NBA Draft Lottery edition
Stand on your head for one night because this is when everything gets flipped upside down so the NBA bottom feeders can plant the flag on a summit. Tuesday’s NBA Draft lottery is an especially important inflection point in NBA history. There won’t be any wavering over who will be the top pick in nex...
Mikal Bridges is the calm after the storm of Brooklyn’s tumultuous Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant era
Today is the one-month anniversary of the NBA trade deadline that put the league in a blender. While the Phoenix Suns seem content with their half of the trade that netted them Kevin Durant, the Brooklyn Nets have quietly been winners in their own way. In addition to the first-round picks Phoenix su...
Light the beam: The Sacramento Kings on pace for historic offensive output
It’s well past time for a media mea culpa on the Sacramento Kings. That means myself included. Prior to the season, The Athletic’s John Hollinger had the Kings finishing 10th in the West, FiveThirtyEight’s Jared Dubin predicted they’d finish 16 games under .500 and in 12th. DraftKings, Vegas sportsb...
These are the top 10 young cores in the NBA right now
The “middle class” of the NBA is slowly eroding. Surprisingly, it’s not totally a bad thing. Almost every team has a talented young core with potential, raising parity within the NBA. Even the teams at the bottom of the standings have enough young players to have something to look forward to in two ...
YouTuber wins NBA Dunk Contest
Nobody should be surprised that Mac McClung won the dunk contest. If you’re a hoops fan, McClung has been in the public eye for some time now because he can dunk well enough to go viral. Add in that he’s a 6-foot-2 white guy, and you have a recipe for internet fame....
Here’s how the Sacramento Kings became the NBA’s team of redemption
Kings Nation has been through the wringer for the past 16 years. The Sacramento Kings may be poised to end their postseason drought and the path forward is illuminated in a unique way by an unusual group. During the offseason, owner Vivek Ranadivé had the brightest full-color laser equipment in the ...
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...
Catching up with the soap opera drama of the NBA
The NBA is one of the longest-running unscripted nighttime soaps on television. Even outside of tip-offs and the final buzzer, its headliners are some of the most accessible figures in professional sports. The rosters are smaller, their faces aren’t obstructed, their games air nightly for at least h...
10 NBA preseason takeaways that provide insight into the regular season
The NBA will give everyone their first real look at the league’s rapidly transforming landscape and its latest rookie class when the regular season tips off on Tuesday, but the preseason is a window into what to expect from certain teams. Wins and losses are mostly meaningless, so don’t read into th...
Westbrook has opted to remain a Laker for a whopping $47M… what now?
LOS ANGELES — Timely Warning Crime Alert — Robbery....
Is Jaden Ivey going to Sacramento or the dentist?
On the list of things NBA players don’t want to do, playing in Sacramento has to be close to No. 1, right? When Ben Simmons presented Philly with his platter of preferred trade destinations, an exec said he wanted to go to one of the three California teams, which was either an oversight because ther...
The Sacramento Kings will get another shot to blow it in NBA Draft
The Sacramento Kings received another undeserved lifeline during Tuesday night’s NBA Draft Lottery in the form of a three-pick bounce from their projected slot at 7th to the 4th overall pick. Cue the PTSD. The 2022 Western Conference Finals is a testament to how badly the Sacramento Kings have bungl...