jr Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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...

Bronny James will have to speak for himself — eventually
You’ve known about him for years. You’ve read about how he’s worth millions via NIL. And you’ve seen his highlights. But, have you actually heard him speak? Probably not. And more than likely that trend will continue on Tuesday night when Bronny James takes part in the 2023 McDonald’s All-American G...

The Sports Nihilist takes on the Sweet 16
Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe. Fuck you....

The men's NCAA Sweet 16 storylines to watch
The Sweet 16 is when the NCAA Tournament starts to feel less like an ear-splitting house party and more like an interpersonal kickback in the penthouse suite. The setting is more personal, the opponents are scouted more thoroughly and the quality of basketball gets upgraded significantly. The CBS an...

Is it finally time for the Toronto Blue Jays?
Once the Toronto Maple Leafs get Andrei Vasilevskiy’d in the first round again, it’s not like the angst level in the T.O. will fade all that much through the summer months. That’s because the Toronto Blue Jays have reached the same threshold as the Leafs passed a few years ago, where you go from you...

Joel Embiid has overtaken Nikola Jokić for MVP
Don’t count MVPs before they hatch. Nikola Jokić’s third consecutive MVP has seemed like an inevitability during the first three-quarters of the season. Jokić’s triple-double averages, improved offensive efficiency, advanced statistics, and Denver’s No. 1 seed in the Western Conference all appeared ...

Ex-NFLer Stanley Wilson Jr. died the same way several other men have in LA this year
On Mar. 1, the Los Angeles Police Department Protective League — the local union — presented a proposal. The rank-and-file officers desire to limit the types of calls to which they provide a response. Two of those types of calls include mental health and welfare checks. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles...

March Badness: Scandals defined the year in college hoops
In a year devoid of a dominant blue blood or player, college basketball stayed in the headlines for the worst reasons. Preseason No. 1 UNC whiffed on the season and missed the tournament entirely. Gonzaga is relying on a normal supply of veteran talent, but is less interesting to watch for casual fa...

Damian Lillard sounds like he’s threatening to Barry Sanders his career
Damian Lillard was in the news Wednesday for sounding like an old head during an appearance on J.J. Redick’s The Old Man and the Three podcast. From saying young players were entitled, to worrying about the direction of the league, and all the championship tropes that have followed him in between, i...

Deadspin presents: The Great Debates tournament
Welcome to the Great Debates bracket, where we’re trying to find out what is life’s greatest argument. The queries below have stumped philosophers, presidents, priests, and peasants alike. They’ve inspired books, memes, Twitter threads, and even entire fields of study....

Jerry Jones prepared to penny-pinch his way through free agency — again
America’s Team is worth more money than any other team in the NFL. In fact, the Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable team in the world, according to Forbes. Whether you want to believe they are still “America’s Team” or not is irrelevant. The Cowboys are raking in dollar bills hand over fist. So, it...

Baseball is getting increasingly liberal with the term ‘perfect game’
There was a perfect game in the World Baseball Classic on Monday. The Puerto Rico pitching staff, led by a perfect 5.2 innings from journeyman José De León, didn’t surrender a baserunner to Israel. Normally, that’d be pretty amazing, even by modern-day pitching standards. But — and I definitely fore...

OBJ reportedly wants $20M pay day — good luck with that
Odell Beckham Jr. is back on the field and reportedly expecting to cash in big time with a new contract in free agency. After winning a ring with the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI, Beckham missed all of last season recovering from an injured ACL he suffered in that game. He’s finally able to wo...

The top 18 NBA Draft prospects to watch in the NCAA tournament
We’re less than a week away from the start of the NCAA Tournament and several of the stars that will shine during March Madness will end their college careers during the showcase. While the lose-o-rama for Victor Wembanyama, the projected No. 1 overall pick, has been underway for several months now,...

Baker Mayfield is running out of time in the NFL
Now that Tom Brady is gone for good (supposedly), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need a quarterback. It’s been reported by NFL Network that the Bucs have their sights set on former No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield. The Bucs could be looking at Mayfield to compete with former second-round pick Kyle Trask ...

Chicago just took everything from Carolina and then asked for Moore
It had been long rumored that the Chicago Bears were going to move off the first overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. In such a quarterback-heavy class, a team with a solid situation under center was destined for a great haul in exchange for a top draft pick. While most experts assumed the Indianapol...

George Karl tried to stick up for JJ Redick and should have sat this one out
George Karl picked the wrong day to go after Kendrick Perkins. On the Tuesday episode of First Take, JJ Redick and Perkins had a discussion about the NBA MVP that was loud, animated, and eventually went viral on social media. Perkins is not one to back off of his opinions so after the episode, he pa...

JJ Redick and Kendrick Perkins are becoming ESPN’s new debate-show circus
JJ Redick looks like he’d rather be receiving a colonoscopy than embracing the debate on First Take. Redick joined ESPN after retirement, riding the success of his podcast The Old Man and the Three, and initially seemed like an odd fit for First Take. However, the more he strikes a nerve with his co...

B1G Disappointment: The teams that have won national titles since the Big Ten last cut down the nets
Facebook hadn’t been invented yet, Zion Williamson didn’t exist, Mad Cow Disease was the “pandemic” of the time, and Y2K is what so many thought would be the end of modern civilization. The year 2000 feels like it was so long ago, but it feels even further away for Big Ten hoops fans. Twenty-three y...

Deadspin’s 2023 Men's NCAA Tournament Automatic Bid Tracker
The Men’s NCAA Tournament is just over the horizon and as its 32 automatic bids are earned in rapid-fire over the next week, it can be too much to track on your own. That’s what this space is for. One of these 32 automatic bids from a smaller conference is likely to become a Cinderella, but first ga...