ja Page 39 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Tyronn Lue unplugged Kawhi Leonard before he could overheat in a playoff atmosphere
This year, the NBA claimed their findings are that load management mumbo jumbo is not supported by scientific data. Yet, the Clippers are still so concerned about Kawhi Leonard’s circuitry that they will unplug him before they risk him overheating and hurting himself when necessary. On Sunday night,...

The Maple Leafs have their problems, but paying their good players isn’t one of them
The free-agent apocalypse that was going to arrive in Toronto next summer has apparently disappeared. Before last summer, Auston Matthews and William Nylander were a season away from unrestricted free agency, and John Tavares and Mitch Marner were two years away. The latter two are still in that spo...

DeMeco Ryans is the only choice for NFL Coach of the Year
Mike Tomlin still hasn’t had a losing season. Kevin Stefanski’s squad endured five different starting quarterbacks. Dan Campbell has the Detroit Lions hosting a playoff game and they’re the favorite. But, they all fail in comparison to what DeMeco Ryans has done in Houston. A rookie head coach has t...

The playoffs will not be easy for the Ravens and 49ers
The end of the NFL regular season is always a sad day. It signals that only four weeks of NFL games remain until the second week of September. That means I have to spend my next seven months of Sunday afternoons with commercials since there is no RedZone for the rest of the season. (Also, RedZone on...

Remember when the Eagles were Super Bowl contenders?
My how the mighty have fallen. In September, Jalen Carter looked like the next coming of Aaron Donald and the tush push was the most debated offensive play since the double reverse that won a state championship game in Remember the Titans. After going 10-1 in their first 11 games, the Philadelphia E...

Everyone has a gimmick in the NFL. Until they don’t
The NFL season zips by, which might be one of the hundreds of reasons it remains our national religion. There isn’t really time to get bored with it and everything that happens in it feels truly important. Which means any team that can string a few good weeks together has turned some mythical corner...

The Jets reportedly want to trade Zach Wilson. Good luck
Way to go New York Jets. They halted a losing streak to the New England Patriots that stretched back to the Obama administration. In what might have been Bill Belichick’s final game as head coach of the Patriots, a team that he has dominated since leaving them at the altar in 2000 buried him in the ...

Stephen A. Smith may take a late night television jalopy out for a spin next year
It’s opening night for the 2025 NBA season. After Inside the NBA guffaws its way through the opening game, a portion of the audience siphons off to Apple TV or Prime Video, where Stephen A. Smith is starting his opening monologue. Except he isn’t ranting and raving about Donovan Mitchell and Jalen B...

Despite a 13-win campaign, it’s still hard to trust the Ravens
After dominating Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Miami in consecutive weeks, the Baltimore Ravens looked like the dominant force everyone had been waiting for all season. Forget about the hiccup Saturday night against Pittsburgh (minus Lamar Jackson), Baltimore is viewed by many as the favorite to ...

Every NFL team's retired jersey numbers
One of the biggest honors in all of sports is to have your number retired by your respective franchise. No one else will be able to wear it after you, cementing your legacy in the rafters or in a ring of honor/team hall of fame. Here are all of the officially retired numbers by the NFL (minus the Ba...

The natives are getting restless at Ohio State and LSU
There’s natural staff turnover — primarily assistants getting poached for better opportunities elsewhere — and then there’s what Ohio State and LSU are purportedly doing. Each head coach is under pressure to make changes after showings not up to program standards, and if history is an indication of ...

John Fisher's move of A's may have a snag; Jim Harbaugh avoids a choke job; the strange case of Luke Littler
There’s generally little hope for fans when it’s already been announced that their team will move to another city. That hope evaporates more when a league approves it, as MLB has done with the A’s move to Vegas. And yet, there’s always a sliver of light that can’t be extinguished when an owner is so...

Jennifer Botterill exposes hockey-culture stupidity; Kraken mascot beef comes to a head; goalie trouble for top teams
There is a segment of hockey fans that have always wanted to watch the bubble of hockey men discussing hockey things get totally pierced by even just the smallest bit of logic. For that is the true enemy of most things that have been hockey ethos. So a hearty thank you to Jennifer Botterill, who dur...

Aubrey Huff still a sexist dolt; free agency grinds to halt; Do Omar Vizquel Omar Vizquel, Trevor Bauer deserve a second chance?
Updated Jan. 5: Aubrey Huff’s X/Twitter hiatus was short-lived, as the ex-MLB player and problematic poster reactivated his account and proceeded to be predictably sexist, and offensive. - Cale Clinton Read More...

Darvin Ham in crosshairs; Giannis thinks of Pacers during sex; James Harden, Clippers don't deserve your faith
News flash: The Miami Heat are a better coached team than the Los Angeles Lakers. It showed in the fourth quarter of their Wednesday night matchup. Erik Spoelstra has been with the Heat organization since 1995 — its head coach since 2008. Following nine seasons as an NBA player, Darvin Ham was an as...

In honor of the Magic retiring Shaq's number, here is every NBA team's retired jersey numbers
With the announcement that the Orlando Magic will retire Shaquille O’Neal’s jersey, the NBA has finally done it! All 30 teams have officially retired a jersey number for a specific player (Yes, before Shaq, the Magic’s only jersey retired was No. 6 for “The Sixth Man,” a.k.a the fans)....

Advice to sports media people: Hype any team but the Clippers
There are certain teams as a sportswriter that you simply should not trust. Despite the way the Detroit Lions are playing, their fans won’t hesitate to tell you a size-14 steel-toe boot is about to drop at any moment. We all know what tortured souls I’m talking about so let’s spare them further angu...

The Warriors hear the sound of inevitability
When Rome was burning, there wasn’t a definitive moment when it all collapsed. A definitive “BOOM” where everyone can say, “Well, that’s it for the Romans. Good run.” Had there been, it might have sounded like this:...

NFL scriptwriters couldn’t have penned a better ending to the regular season than Bills-Dolphins
Give the NFL credit. The league obviously hired writers from disparate backgrounds to arrange the season’s plotlines. On Sunday, the Week 18 finale will climax with an end-of-season clash of genres between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, who couldn’t be more different. The Dolphins even have a...

Darvin Ham is not the reason the Lakers are losing
News flash: The Miami Heat are a better coached team than the Los Angeles Lakers. It showed in the fourth quarter of their Wednesday night matchup. Erik Spoelstra has been with the Heat organization since 1995 — its head coach since 2008. Following nine seasons as an NBA player, Darvin Ham was an as...