ja Page 55 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Novak Djokovic had a bad day at the office, for once
If beating Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros is sport’s toughest assignment, beating Novak Djokovic in Melbourne can’t be too far behind it. He hadn’t lost there in some 3,000 days (a COVID deportation playing some role in that), he’s won the tournament 10 times and he was still coming off a previous se...

Milwaukee Bucks should trade Doc Rivers for Jrue Holiday
The NBA has done a spectacular job with Rivalry Week. Sam Presti vs. his mentors in Oklahoma City took a backseat to Chet Holmgren vs. Victor Wembanyama. That clash felt like a future NBA Finals showdown. Devin Booker and Luka Doncic exchanged their usual vitriol and potshots at one another. However...

Vince McMahon named in new, horrifying sex-traffic lawsuit
(Warning: This story contains graphic details that might be disturbing to some.)...

Logic tells us the Ravens should win the Super Bowl, but the NFL has a way of going off script
We’re down to the final four in the NFL. Despite Kansas City and San Francisco having been in this mix multiple times over the past few years, simple logic points to Baltimore and Lamar Jackson finally breaking through. We also know the NFL tends to go “off script” sometimes in the postseason. The R...

Blood-money sellout claims pending LIV-PGA merger is for the 'good of fans'
Bryson DeChambeau, one of the PGA defectors who took the Saudi blood money to join LIV, thinks the impending merger of the two organizations is what golf fans are clamoring for....

Hiring Hue Jackson would be a huge mistake for Morehouse College
Morehouse football desperately needs a shot in the arm. Hue Jackson is a dose of bad medicine....

Magic's return and the NBA All-Star Game's most memorable moments
The 2024 NBA All-Star Game tips off in Indianapolis in just a few weeks, with starters being named tonight. Whoever makes it, they’ll have some big shoes to fill. The All-Star Game is full of some of the most iconic moments in NBA history. Here are some of the performances that make the weekend so s...

The LA Chargers are finally interesting
Los Angeles’ most faceless and fanless team has landed a superstar. The NFL is a failsafe league. All of its television rights are national — as well as massive — and the roster construction is limited by a hard salary cap. The Los Angeles Chargers may not be hurting financially, but they are a thir...

On Sports Illustrated, the LA Times, and why sports writing matters
These are dark days for journalism, once considered the “Fourth Estate” of American democracy, so named because of journalism’s role in advocating for citizens, framing political and social issues, and holding the government to account on behalf of its people. These days, it seems there are two kind...

Joe Mauer, Todd Helton and the 1-team baseball Hall of Famers by franchise
The 2024 Hall of Fame inductions added two names to a very exclusive list. With Joe Mauer and Todd Helton’s nomination to Cooperstown, the two join 53 other players as the only in MLB history to make the Hall of Fame after spending their entire careers on one team. Listed by team, here are the reale...

Milwaukee Bucks hire retread Doc Rivers as new head coach
The Milwaukee Bucks filled their head coach vacancy with one of the NBA’s most familiar faces. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Doc Rivers will replace Adrian Griffin. The move was first announced by CNN Sports Tuesday night, leading to mass confusion around the Internet. ...

Doc Rivers is the habit the NBA can’t quit
Adrian Griffin was set up to fail from the start. The moment he was appointed head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, this felt like the making of a tempestuous union. Watching Griffin ink a deal to assume one of the most pressure-filled, win-now jobs in the NBA, then hire former Bucks coach Terry Stotts...

If Karl-Anthony Towns drops 62 in a forest on the same night Embiid delivers 70, does it make a sound?
That sound you heard last night was Karl-Anthony Towns reminding us that he’ll always be in the shadows of his peers. On Monday night in Philadelphia, Joel Embiid painted his magnum opus en route to a 70-point, 18-rebound exhibition of scoring prowess. Embiid’s 70 also came on the 18th anniversary o...

Ranking the final 4 teams in NFL playoffs
The stage is set. Four teams remain. Aside from some gut-wrenching, soul-crushing losses by the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys, these are pretty much the teams we expected to make it this far. ...

The Los Angeles Dodgers busy offseason gets busier
The Los Angeles Dodgers have dominated the MLB’s offseason, loading up on talent and spending over $1 billion in free agency. They’ve made the biggest splash signings both domestically and internationally, and locked in one of the biggest trades to boot. They’re not done, either. The Dodgers just ag...

This about sums up the Penguins season
Hockey can be infuriating. In no other sport can you do mostly everything right, but a little chinks in the armor can have an outsized effect if they’re spaced out correctly. Go 0-fer on the power play, or don’t get a save at the right time, or give up the wrong odd-man rush in the gimmick of overti...

Luka Doncic and each NBA team's leading single-game scorer
Update: Luka Doncic is the latest NBA star to drop 70+ points this season. It topped his Dallas Mavericks single-game record of 60, set in 2022. ...

Liverpool finally find a win in third gear
The Premier League finished up their split round, in what constitutes their winter break. So let’s run through every game that went down Saturday and Sunday, which doesn’t even allow us to get to our usual five bullet points! It’s our break, too, we guess. And sorry to any Brighton or Wolves support...

The AFC Championship Game is going to be extra 'quarterbacky'
When you’re truly remorseful, your apology tends to be louder than your initial disrespect. It’s why Lamar Jackson’s and Patrick Mahomes’ haters have been so silent lately....

The NBA 'superstar' landscape has shifted
There is no greater conduit for NBA hyperbole than the conversation around “superstars.” To have a rational, substantive debate, there must first be basic groundwork for what constitutes superstar status. First, the bad news: former Finals MVPs Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, LeBron James and Kawhi Leona...