hoot Page 19 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Tracy McGrady’s new league highlights a style of hoops NBA players took mainstream in the 90s
Although basketball is a team sport, there are multiple one-on-one matchups within a game. Michael Jordan is credited with ushering in the isolation style of hoops into the NBA during the 1980s and ’90s....

Which NBA players saw their stock fall during these playoffs
A player’s worth is most accurately weighed in the playoffs. Just refer to last season’s Julius Randle debacle. Randle averaged 24 ppg, 10 rpg, and 6 apg on scorching shooting splits of 46%/41%/81%. Every metric but his FG% was a career-best. Then came the playoffs. In that first-round series vs. th...

Jimmy Butler’s superstar card got declined when Miami needed it most
Earlier this month, FS1’s Nick Wright debuted a bit called the Superstar Club. I don’t usually endorse debate show takes, but this was a solid metaphor. Jimmy Butler was depicted standing in line, waiting for entry. In this year’s Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, he nearly cemen...

Reformatting the NBA Playoffs could solve the league’s injury issue
The NBA Playoffs are gradually winding down, and to be honest, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag where quality is concerned. Despite the rating increase early in the postseason, some of these games have been hard to watch. Injuries to stars and the lack of downtime between games have some thinking it m...

Colin Kaepernick may return to the NFL while America asks itself what is it that the police do, exactly
Every revolution begins with a single act of defiance - Mahatma Gandhi...

What are the Miami Heat?
Three teams have been pillars of culture in the modern NBA: The San Antonio Spurs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Miami Heat. No matter the players, these three franchises have established systems where players come in to fill a role, commit to the vision, and buy in completely. Of the trio, onl...

Whatever sport the Heat and Celtics are playing, it’s trash
A lot of sports fandom and analysis is about feel vs. facts, which can go pretty haywire at times. It definitely “feels” like these NBA playoffs have been uniquely blowout-heavy, but it kind of turns out they haven’t been. There just hasn’t been any game-turning shots in the last minute or buzzer-be...

It won’t matter whom the Lakers hire as head coach, they’ll find a way to screw it up
The Los Angeles Lakers are currently searching for a new head coach. Once they settle on a candidate, this will be the Lakers’ sixth full-time head coach since 2012. That’s shocking for a franchise that has won as much as the Lakers have in their history. But this coaching search feels destined for ...

The Grizzlies and Heat reacted completely differently to plays where their stars were seemingly injured
Acting like you’ve been there before might be cliché in the world of sports, but it really is the only way to operate for some franchises. For other organizations, it’s a few words some lame old guy threw together ages ago....

Whose personality is more irritating: Current Jimmy Butler or prime Dwight Howard?
Everyone has had that coworker who kind of sucks but is really good at his job so the manager looks the other way when Glen takes 20 minute out of the weekly staff meeting to brag about his weekend jet skiing. Yeah, he’s annoying, but holy shit can he sell the hell out of reasonably priced Kias. Dwi...

Miami and Boston meet again in the conference finals and this time their coaches even have history
This year’s Eastern Conference Finals matchup should be a rough, rugged, defensive series that will most likely come down to game seven. The Heat and Celtics are pretty evenly matched and familiar, having faced off in the ECF just two years ago. This will be the third meeting for the Heat and Celtic...

We're seeing an NBA coaching reformation
If the success of Boston’s Ime Udoka and New Orleans’ Willie Green has taught NBA ownership anything, when it comes to hiring coaches, it should be out with the old, in with the new. These two rising coaching stars stepped into dysfunctional messes, with Udoka trying to bring together a team that wa...

The sky’s the limit for Ja Morant
There are one or two players who make the leap toward legitimate superstar status every playoffs. This year it was Jason Tatum and Ja Morant. To those who have been watching, Luka Dončić was finally given the opportunity to show what he could do in the second round, which is much of the same domina...

It’s going to be a long summer in Phoenix after a Game 7 no-show against Dallas
Wow. Freaking wow....

We have a new standard for pants-filling
When it comes to truly historic pants-shittings, they generally get to be known simply by the name of the place they took place. Say “Belo Horizonte” to any fan with even a reasonable amount of soccer knowledge, and they’ll know it was Germany 7-1 Brazil. Except that was a deeply flawed Brazil team ...

For the Bucks to win a third game in Boston, it’s going to take one helluva homecoming for Pat Connaughton
The Milwaukee Bucks did not have enough to finish off the Boston Celtics in Game 6 at home on Friday. Just like in the Bucks’ win on Wednesday night in Boston, they were down double digits going into the fourth quarter after a third-quarter Celtics run. The Celtics would extend the lead early in the...

How is it OK to share video of people fleeing a mass shooter?
I’ve watched enough disaster movies to know what a fleeing crowd looks like — people scattering, screaming, panicking. It’s one thing if movie extras are running from the Chitauri in the Avengers, but it’s another deeply disturbing, unnecessary Twitter video when it’s a crowd of Milwaukee Bucks’ fan...

Jimmy Butler is the most underrated star left in the NBA playoffs
In any sport, the postseason is where stars carve out their legacy. The NBA playoffs are no different. In the NBA, it’s said that teams usually need a superstar or multiple stars to compete for a championship. Jimmy Butler is the man for the Miami Heat, but he’s never considered among the upper eche...

This inconsistent and deteriorating version of James Harden is a present and future problem for Sixers
After Tuesday night’s 120-85 loss to the Miami Heat, James Harden and Joel Embiid are Thelma and Louise-ing towards a cliff’s edge. In Embiid’s defense, the MVP runner-up has played with a broken bone in his face since Game 3. The franchise cornerstone will have better days ahead. Harden’s 31-point,...

COVID-19 is still the biggest X-factor of the NBA playoffs
The fat lady may be singing, but the coronavirus and all of its variants are still dancing like the party just started....