joe Page 51 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Joel Embiid can make fools of us all
So this was me at some point last night:...
The baseball is deflated again
I’m cribbing heavily from Joe Sheehan’s newsletter again, but in his latest missive he points out that things keep getting better and better for pitchers. Thanks to technology and greater study, they discover new pitches or tweaks to existing ones as they keep throwing harder and harder. At the same...
Well look here, the NBA got smart and finally hired social media’s favorite sports broadcaster
Imagine attempting to run a necessary errand before the start of Monday’s first playoff game. It’s the only time that you have during the day to complete this task. You scramble, get it completed and head home safely, but also with purpose, to get home and see as much of the first game as possible. ...
Is it finally winning time for Philadelphia?
On Saturday, the 76ers began the postseason by breezing past the Toronto Raptors with a ho-hum 131-111 drubbing. The 2022 playoffs is a significant crucible for Philadelphia. The legacy of The Process is at stake. If HBO ever decides to expand its foray into NBA biopics beyond the Showtime Lakers’ W...
Can we please get an LS-U <em>30 for 30</em> already?
It’s hard to quantify what makes a thing charismatic. I recently went to New Orleans for the first time, and before I arrived, I was a little skeptical because often when people can’t shut up about how great something is, the expectation is set so high that anything but perfection is going to be a l...
Unlikely heroes lead way to start NBA playoffs
The stars were out for the first day of the NBA playoffs, with Donovan Mitchelll scoring 32 points to lead the Jazz to a 99-93 win in Dallas, Karl-Anthony Towns putting up 29 points and 13 boards to lead the Timberwolves to a Game 1 upset in Memphis, 130-117, and then Tyrese Maxey scored 38 points f...
Joe Maddon out-galaxy brains himself, manages to win anyway
There are a couple of key questions in baseball over the past several years that regularly intersect: “Why can’t the Angels win anything when they have Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, two unique talents among the greatest the game has ever seen?” and “How did Joe Maddon ever win a World Series with th...
Civil servant Kyrie Irving probably shouldn’t Google ‘Nets owner-China ties’
Two of the people not quoted in ESPN’s nearly flawless piece about Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai’s problematic ties to China — including a business under the umbrella of his company developing facial recognition software that may or may not have been equipped with an “Uyghur alarm” to alert police of...
No one asked for a Joe Paterno retrospective on his ‘legacy’
“We have never covered up things around here. We just didn’t have problems.”...
Let’s watch two guys chop each other into mush
While the individual storylines AEW tell can be incredibly intricate and dense (sometimes drenched in history with other companies and/or countries and playing on things only a certain few will know from a decade in the past), the premise of the whole company is pretty simple. Give the people what t...
Sorry not sorry, Clayton Kershaw deserved a chance to finish that game
Look, I understand the arguments and the rationale. Clayton Kershaw is coming off an injury-plagued season and he didn’t even have a proper spring training to prepare for this season. He’s 34 and hasn’t had a 200-inning season since 2015. ...
Here’s hoping Lillard is a better GM than LeBron
“You’re really going to do this?” is a question one canceled ABC drama character asks another right before they pack up their sedan and move across the country by themselves. It’s something my family not-so-subtly asked me when I told them I was moving to Chicago after more than a decade in the moun...
Here’s hoping Lillard is a better GM than LeBron
“You’re really going to do this?” is a question one canceled ABC drama character asks another right before they pack up their sedan and move across the country by themselves. It’s something my family not-so-subtly asked me when I told them I was moving to Chicago after more than a decade in the moun...
Tony Dungy is constantly used as a prop by bigots
Tony Dungy is one of the most important Black figures in NFL history, who has broken barriers on and off the field. Tony Dungy frequently finds himself in problematic situations that impede the community that he intends to do right by. Two things can be true at the same time....
It’s 2022, we don’t need positions on the All-NBA ballots anymore
Positions in basketball are entirely different than almost every sport. In baseball a pitcher is required to stand at the mound until he decides to throw a pitch, make a pick-off attempt, or step off to take a break. In football, a play cannot be called for an offensive lineman to receive the ball u...
Steven Kwan is kicking off his career hotter than anyone ever
First things first, I just want to say that I know he’s only played four career games, but that doesn’t take away from how insane Cleveland’s 24-year-old rookie, Steven Kwan, has been during this stretch. In 19 plate appearances, Kwan has recorded nine hits (three extra-base hits) and six walks for ...
The Mavericks had better pack some vaseline and boots if Luka isn’t full strength for their first round series against the Jazz
Bless the Dallas Mavericks’ hearts, they went for it on Sunday. They were one game behind the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference standings. If the Warriors — sans Stephen Curry — had lost to the New Orleans Pelicans and the Mavericks defeated the San Antonio Spurs, the Mavs would have j...
When Jackie opened the door, these men walked through
It took 2,559 days after Jackie Robinson’s debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers for Major League Baseball to have its 42nd Black player appear in a game. Those seven years and two days saw 11 of the league’s 16 franchises integrate. The Boston Red Sox were the last to do so with Pumpsie Green in July 1959...
NBA playoff matchups we’d love to see (and one we wouldn’t)
The 2022 NBA playoffs is an annual garden of forking paths. Teams don’t know who to expect awaiting them in the next round or when their season will end. One injury can swing momentum in the other direction. What we do know is that there are particular matchups that are more palatable than others. C...
And the award for Most Unreliable Player of the Year goes to…
The NBA season has finally ended, and now it’s time to hand out some hardware. But this isn’t your usual NBA award. We’re handing out the MUP for the Most Unreliable Player of the Year. The criteria’s open to anything from being unavailable due to frequent injury, dealing with bouts of narcissism, t...