jr Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Zay Flowers might already be the best wide receiver in Ravens history
The Baltimore Ravens have been one of the NFL’s most consistent franchises since their relocation to the mid-Atlantic in 1996. They have made the playoffs 14 times, secured six division championships, and won two Super Bowls. A superb 27-season run by any metric, and they have been able to maintain ...

Don’t sleep on the men’s team that America is sending to the FIBA World Cup
Since NBA players have been permitted to play in international competition, the United States has never sent over a unit like the one they are sending to Asia later this month for the FIBA World Cup. Not a single player on this roster has made an All-NBA team — a first since American pros were allow...

Jake Paul and Nate Diaz set boxing back at least a week, probably more
The only reason to watch Jake Paul box is to see a YouTube personality get hit in the face. Like that Twitch star who started a riot in Union Square this week; get him in a pair of gloves and let a New Yorker of equal stature go a few rounds. On Saturday night in Dallas, Nate Diaz, a 37-year-old UFC...

George Pickens is becoming this generation's human highlight reel
Dominique Wilkins will forever be known as the human highlight film, but a Gen-Z version of that nickname needs to be invented for George Pickens. He dazzled in his first training camp, preseason, and also during the regular season. Pickens is picking up right where he left off, drawing oohs and aah...
![Disney-sponsored Orlando Magic say $50k donation to Ron DeSantis' PAC came before presidential bid [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/b3603fb90aecd1832bb1a38e66b05618.jpg)
Disney-sponsored Orlando Magic say $50k donation to Ron DeSantis' PAC came before presidential bid [Update]
Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been engaged in a blood feud for more than a year. On Tuesday DeSantis’ self-appointed governing board of the Walt Disney World district in Orlando dismantled all of the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in it. In February, Disney decided to canc...

Doris Burke, Mike Breen, and Doc Rivers are a match made in…something
Weeks after ESPN split up the NBA’s quirkiest broadcast TRIO by inexplicably laying off Jeff Van Gundy, the suits in Bristol had a high bar to reach for the new three-man-weave in its NEXT lead broadcast team. Mike Breen was a certified starter as the voice of the Worldwide Leader’s play-by-play NBA...

World Cup Diary Day 11: Give them an inch…
We’ve gotten to the business end of the Group Stage, with Group A finishing up their schedule and sending a host home before the knockouts for the first time. But that was overshadowed by possibly the biggest upset of the tournament so far that blows up the draw a bit. Let’s run it through....

Crawford-Spence was an all-timer — just not in the way fans expected
The only ruling necessary after Terence Crawford’s TKO of Errol Spence Jr. was whether Saturday’s fight at the T Mobile Center in Las Vegas met the hype. It was one-sided throughout, as Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) put Spence (28-1, 22 KOS) on the canvas in the second round for the first time in Spence’s...

Where did the American heavyweight boxing champions go?
Errol Spence and Terence Crawford’s highly-anticipated welterweight Fight of the Year doubles as a ring showdown for the pound-for-pound crown that boxing aficionados have been counting down to for years....

The Oakland A’s might not even be the worst team this year, let alone all time
Coming into the 2023 season, many thought that the Oakland A’s had the potential to be not just the worst team in baseball this year, but the worst of all time....

Northwestern’s decision to keep Pat Fitzgerald’s assistants is proof that Northwestern isn’t a serious place
The “intellectual elite” are failing in Evanston. In the same week in which we discovered that Northwestern’s head football coach Pat Fitzgerald’s laughable two-week suspension should have led to his eventual firing for running a program that’s “allegedly” allowed hazing and racism to run rampant fo...

The NFL’s most dysfunctional team operates out of 345 Park Avenue
For years, Dan Snyder caused maximum chaos for the Washington Commanders, and months after agreeing to sell his team, he’s still a reliable source of drama. If the NFL can’t convince its franchises to willingly submit to HBO’s Hard Knocks anymore, maybe the league needs to open its own kimono. Trans...

The Braves and the White Sox were supposed to both have bright futures
Now that the MLB has reached the midsummer classic portion of its schedule, it gives me time to reflect. This period of deep thought has taken me back to a time when the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves had the two best farm systems in MLB....

Cooper Flagg was playing in the wrong summer league
Victor Wembanyama’s NBA summer league debut was a mixed bag that had quick-take artists calling him Raef “LaFrench” after a 3-for-14 shooting performance. Nevermind that he rejected several shots and affected a slew of others. On Sunday night, Wembanyama had to respond to the best player in a summer...

The Charlotte Hornets are a soap opera
Throughout the history of NBA teams that have called Charlotte, North Carolina home, a second-round trip to the playoffs has been the furthest point any franchise has made it. And while this iteration of the Hornets has nothing to do with the ones from yesteryear, they do feature something that prob...

Victor Wembanyama passes first test
If it wasn’t obvious from Victor Wembanyama’s interview on J.J. Redick’s podcast, this young man is ready for NBA life. Las Vegas, the slow July sports news cycle, Britney Spears, all of it crashed down on him in less than 24 hours. However, when it came time to address the scenario, Wembanyama was ...

MLB's Home Run Derby Chain is terribly uncool
Look at MLB attempting to improve its All Star production with 2004 John Cena-levels of swagger jacking. Remember the G-Unit spinner chain? It has gone from Cena’s WWE championship belt now to the Home Run Derby. The 2023 winner will receive a chain with a bejeweled spinning plus sign....

Where should expectations be set for Victor Wembanyama’s summer league dress rehearsal?
Victor Wembanyama’s career prologue is almost as long as he is. It already feels like Wembanyama’s in his second NBA season doesn’t it? It feels like just yesterday, when he was in the (French) Finals at the exact same time as Nikola Jokic. According to Marc Stein, Wembanyama’s scheduled NBA debut h...

The Rockets have become the NBA’s most polarizing team
The Houston Rockets have been stuck in zero gravity since their post-Harden rebuild began two years ago. Despite their lottery successes they still have no direction. The Rockets lit the fuse this summer expecting a controlled explosion and witnessed the creation of the NBA’s most opulent sparkler....

Hey, at least the Houston Rockets are trying
We laughed at Dillon Brooks’ unceremonious exit from the Memphis Grizzlies, but it will be him with the cheshire grin plastered to his face every time that a direct deposit hits his account. On Saturday he signed a four-year, $80 million contract with the Houston Rockets. The day before, Fred VanVle...