hoot Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

These MLB players went straight to the majors
On Monday, the Pittsburgh Pirates told No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes that he will begin in the minor leagues. While it is disappointing we get robbed of seeing one of the league’s most exciting pitching prospects right out of the gate, the move is not unprecedented. In the history of the MLB, only ...

The best March Madness performances by players on mid-majors
Every year in the March Madness tournament, some school you have never heard of from the middle of nowhere qualifies. They almost are never expected to win, but sometimes, they have one ringer who can carry them very far. Here are some of the best players from mid-major colleges that have dazzled th...

15 most memorable men's March Madness moments since 2000
With March Madness approaching, we are entering the best time of year to be a college basketball fan. To usher in a new year of upsets, stellar performances and champions, here are 15 moments from 2000 to now that are some of the most memorable moments in March Madness history. ...

Dalton Knecht and Reed Sheppard could do something not seen since 1974
This year’s NBA Draft has been dubbed the weakest since the Cleveland Cavaliers wasted the first overall pick on Anthony Bennett. There’s no consensus prize, or catchy tank phrase. Just the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Washington Wizards, and Portland Trail Blazers vying to see who can most e...

Are these Clippers Kenough?
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees. Next up are the L.A. Clippers and the 2024 season possibly being the culmination of their decade of prosperity....

Don't count on the LA Clippers — they're sure to let you down
The Los Angeles Clippers have been a delightful surprise in the NBA since bouncing back from a rough start once James Harden joined the team at the end of October. ...

If you can’t trust Anthony Edwards, you can’t trust the Timberwolves
I’m not anti-analytics, because data matters, but there’s no way to factor in things like your best player missing tipoff because he was a late arrival, or a coach pulling his second-best player when he’s on pace for a 70 burger. The Minnesota Timberwolves are a very good basketball team, by record,...

Do the Thunder have a Josh Giddey problem?
Need any more evidence that Gilbert Arenas’ bellyaching about Europeans and foreigners ruining basketball with their sweet outside strokes is all hot air? I’ll give you one: Josh Giddey. Now that his legal woes appear to be in the rearview mirror, the whispers about his liabilities in the Oklahoma C...

It's make or break for the Los Angeles Clippers
Curses run deep. They fester in bloodlines, foundations and scorched Earth and are lamented in prose, lyric and declaration. From Shakespeare to Dostoevsky, curses are a part of the canon of human creativity. After the Boston Red Sox broke theirs in 2004 and LeBron James brought a championship to Cl...

The Houston Cougars would be the unlikeliest champion in modern NCAA history
Coming off the high of 2023, the 2024 NBA Draft class is destined to be one of the most lifeless in modern history, which explains the predicament men’s college basketball has found itself in here in 2024. While the women are pumping out household names such as Caitlyn Clark, JuJu Watkins, Paige Bue...

Here are increasingly radical solutions to combat the NBA’s overpowered offenses
Scoring in the NBA has ticked up at an exponential rate in the last decade. It doesn’t take Hercule Poirot to figure out what killed NBA defenses. This is a shooter’s league now....

NBA defenses can't keep up with the record-setting highest-scoring offenses
Complaints about NBA defensive intensity have littered sports debate television, podcasts, and columns all season. As of Tuesday, the top five teams in offensive rating will have the five highest marks in that category in NBA history. Six players have scored 60 or more points this season. Luka Donči...

Come on people, let LeBron be a proud dad!
LeBron James has a right to feel any type of way about the attention his son, Bronny, receives. The young man doesn’t even go by LeBron Jr. anymore because the surname attached to his life and Southern Cal basketball jersey is enough pressure by itself. ...

Vince Carter spilled the beans on a $1 million dunk contest
Many of the festivities were up for discussion following the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, with none more talked about than the slam dunk contest. Former dunk champion and current TNT NBA analyst, Vince Carter, appeared on “Run it Back” on Fanduel TV and confirmed a legendary rumor. Carter said he was app...

Don't be Kenny Smith; Redick blasts Rivers; the Knicks are back; How about that ASG?
You don’t have to put on the pom-poms for Sabrina Ionescu or women’s sports, but too many broadcasters are happy to communicate that women’s participation, or records, or fandom is somehow less than. ...

NBA coaches should be forced to participate in All-Star festivities, too
The NBA wanting a buy-in from its stars is an understandable expectation. However, coaches are rarely a part of the All-Star festivities aside from the Eastern and Western Conference coaches. Everyone except for gym rat Tom Thibodeau is on vacation unwinding from the daily rigors of an 82-game grind...

Man admits to firing first shots at Chiefs' Super Bowl parade: police
According to Kansas City police officers, Lyndell Mays — one of the adult males charged with murder after last week’s shooting that killed one and injured 22 during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade — admitted he fired the first shots. ...

5 increasingly unhinged solutions to the NBA All-Star Game
As the NBA has observed its golden era of efficiency proliferate from more streamlined offenses to load management run amok, elements of the league have fallen by the wayside. Marquee hoopers play fewer minutes, fewer games and now they barely expend energy or cross halfcourt during All-Star Weekend...

The NBA All-Star Game has never been better!
Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught, and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe....

Adam Silver is finally realizing that G League Ignite was always doomed to fail
You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. But the only way to improve your jump shot is through shot correction. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is realizing that a shot his league took a few years ago — that many thought looked good when it came off their hands — was always going to be an airb...