james Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Tampa Bay Rays can sure beat the tar out of awful teams
You can only play who is on the schedule. That’s an axiom as old as baseball, and it’s mostly true. The Tampa Bay Rays got to start their season with nine games against MLB’s kids with mittens pinned to their jackets year-round, and they’ve done all they can do. Which is to beat the ever-loving piss...
Redefining what it means to be a unicorn
“Unicorn” is up there with “new normal” and “positionless basketball” as far as terms I would love to see removed from my brain. Any big man with guard skills is dubbed a unicorn, and we’re led to believe the NBA is a mythical universe populated by elves, dragons, and wizards. Well, technically the ...
If the NBA had a Dunk of the Year award, Ja Morant would be the winner
As we enter the final weekend of the NBA season, there are only a few regular season awards yet to be wrapped up. The most notable is the MVP race, but you’re delusional if you think I’m going to write about that. What I’m here to talk about today is the Dunk of the Year. It’s not an official award ...
The Isiah Thomas-Michael Jordan beef still going strong decades later
I guess if Michael Jordan gets to remain bitter about events from 40 years ago then everyone else from that time should be granted the same courtesy. In 2021 it was Scottie Pippen — promoting his bourbon and book — who was publicly critical of Jordan. Since the NBA 75 Greatest Team gathered at the 2...
We created a 64-topic bracket only for you to vote for Michael Jordan for 3 weeks
Folks, we spent a lot of time on this Great Debates bracket. Did anyone ask for a bracket of 64 different regularly debated topics? No. Do we at Deadspin get paid to produce content? According to my direct deposit alerts, yes. Of course, no one wants to hear complaints about sports writing, but it’s...
LeBron leading Lakers' late playoff surge — with a first-round exit likely
The Los Angeles Lakers are riding high late in the season as they attempt to sneak into the top six of the Western Conference avoiding the play-in tournament. After beating Utah Tuesday night, L.A. sits a half-game back of the fifth-place Golden State Warriors and tied with the Clippers (both 41-38)...
Sacramento’s Mike Brown is NBA Coach of the Year — and it shouldn’t be close
The NBA regular season is rolling toward its end, which means award talk is heating up. You’ll hear about the MVP race primarily, but a few other awards are handed out each year that matter. Coach of the Year is one of them, and no one is more deserving in 2023 than Sacramento Kings head coach, Mike...
The new-look Los Angeles Lakers are peaking at just the right time
What appeared to be a lost Los Angeles Lakers season six weeks ago has sprouted wings in the final home stretch before the postseason. After missing countless weeks mending injuries in 2023, Anthony Davis and LeBron James returned to a lineup terraformed on the go....
UConn is the top men’s basketball program of the last 25 years
Of course there have been both more highly anticipated and better-played NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship games than the one that took place on Monday night. It didn’t take long to realize that Connecticut was going to defeat San Diego State, thereby winning the championship in the most dominating...
The Premier League is an abattoir for managers
Here’s a funny stat shared over the weekend. Erik ten Hag is the Premier League’s ninth-longest serving manager. He’s been on the job eight months....
Jordan Addison’s move to USC didn’t help his draft stock — it didn’t hurt either
This time last year, Jordan Addison had cemented himself as one of the best, if not the top, wide receiver in college football. Compiling 100 receptions, 1,593 yards, 17 touchdowns alongside the Biletnikoff Award will bring that kind of praise, especially for a wide receiver at Pittsburgh. The Panth...
The best games of the final week of the 2022-23 NBA regular-season Schedule
It’s the final week of the NBA regular season. Usually I would advise sports fans to get one last glimpse at a young team like the Orlando Magic before their season comes to an end. This season, my viewing recommendation is to wait until next season to watch the youngsters. They likely will have imp...
What’s better than transcendent?
That felt like the March Madness we know and crave. Upsets are fantastic, certainly, and Iowa beating South Carolina was an upset, but only because of the Gamecocks’ perfect 36-0 record and 42-game winning streak overall. This wasn’t David beating Goliath. It was LeBron James taking Zydrunas Ilgausk...
The media photos from the NFL Owners' Meetings were extra white
Football is America’s sport because it’s the game that so closely mirrors how our society works. The players are the workforce/employees. The coaches are middle management. And the owners are the politicians and lawmakers. And when you think of it that way, it’s evident where the lack of diversity w...
The Great Debates tournament: GOATs galore in the final
It’s time to crown a champion — or at least pretend like we don’t know who is going to win this tournament. Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James is the question of our times, like when West Coast vs. East Coast was the fulcrum point of the Golden Age of Hip-Hop. If I could bottle whatever it is that lead...
The Hornets have replaced the Kings as the NBA’s most beleaguered franchise
The Sacramento Kings Beam season isn’t over yet, but success is relative. The Kings finally ended the NBA’s longest playoff drought. All it took was De’Aaron Fox straightening out his jumper, an offseason for Domantas Sabonis to get fully integrated into the offense, trading for Kevin Huerter and Mi...
The fans Rob Manfred is trying to service are prudes
This year’s MLB Opening Day feels different than recent iterations because the media doesn’t have (most of) its usual talking points to complain about. The rule changes are going to shorten the games, discontinue the dialog about shifts, and provide baserunners with throw pillows to slide into. Yay!...
With NFL players being allowed to wear 0, here are my favorite athletes to don the number
Look at the NFL trying to be looser as an organization. First, it relaxed restrictions on player numbers in 2021, and the league has decided that in 2023 a forbidden number will be allowed. Certain players will be allowed to wear the No. 0....
Can the Arizona Diamondbacks come from the clouds?
When baseball writers get done complaining about how late their games are on, most of baseball’s attention this season will be on the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Padres kneecapping the Dodgers in last year’s divisional round gave this tango some stakes instead of the Padres jus...