lean Page 13 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

IDIOT OF THE MONTH: April was bad
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! We’re here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff....

Finding the NBA playoff X factors
The NBA playoffs are where superstars can add to — or subtract from — their legacies. They may come up clutch, or absolutely choke under the spotlight. The same goes for coaches. But there are always subplots around certain youngsters, role players, and unknowns who can make a name for themselves. T...

Who will win as the Lakers, Timberwolves, Pelicans, and Thunder battle for play-in spots?
The 2022-23 NBA regular season has come to a close, and it’s time again for the league’s newest tradition, the play-in tournament. This year the Western Conference had the race to watch down the stretch as it was tighter than spandex in the wrestling ring. In fact, the west was close for most of the...

Treat Rudy Gobert worse than Draymond Green — at least his punch was behind closed doors
It’s not about what was done, it’s about who did it. And if you don’t believe that, this week will be a sports debate-off on the events from the final day of the NBA’s regular season — which included Minnesota Timberwolves star center Rudy Gobert taking a swing at teammate Kyle Anderson on the bench...

Warriors' turnover problem submarines a needed victory
There was a four-second difference between the game clock and the shot clock. The Golden State Warriors had the lead with less than 24 seconds remaining in the game. A victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves would have put the Warriors firmly 1.5 games ahead of the play-in tournament. The Warrior...

Patrick Mahomes will never make as much money as Roger Goodell
For those who want to be a multi-millionaire, the secret is not on LLC Twitter. Starting a business in which you give people personal and financial life advice on TikTok when both aspects of yours are in shambles will not result in a massive payout from advertisers. The easiest way to a life of rich...

The craziest storylines of the NBA season (so far)
The NBA is never drama-free, and there’s a reason the NBA playoffs are one of the few reasons to remain on the toxic hell site that is Twitter these days. But even for the NBA, this season has been a spectacle worth of Vanderpump Rules. As we inch ever closer to the post-season, here’s a look back a...

College ump made a call so bad, he's been indefinitely suspended
Somewhere Fred VanVleet is smiling and cursing happily after a subpar official received his just due. The University of New Orleans defeated Mississippi Valley State 7-3 in a college baseball game on Friday. As the college basketball season is heating up, millions of people still found time to view ...

Derek Carr chose the path most traveled in signing with New Orleans
After months of speculation, Derek Carr has decided on his next NFL home, and it’s not the destination we’d been led to believe it would likely land. No, Carr has not signed with the New York Jets. The former Las Vegas/Oakland Raider has signed a long-term contract with the New Orleans Saints and is...

These are the top 10 young cores in the NBA right now
The “middle class” of the NBA is slowly eroding. Surprisingly, it’s not totally a bad thing. Almost every team has a talented young core with potential, raising parity within the NBA. Even the teams at the bottom of the standings have enough young players to have something to look forward to in two ...

ESPN’s top draft analyst is mocking mock drafts by anointing Bronny James as a future top-10 pick
There’s no high school basketball LeaguePass — yet. Aside from the Bronny James hypebeast machine, the top prospects in the upcoming draft are previewed to the general public through the diligent scouting done by professional analysts or scouts who scour camps, national showcases, and high school gy...

Super Bowl LVII: A Kelce by any other name is just an offensive lineman
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....

These NFL teams have the most to gain from competent quarterback play
This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll make it quick because you have slides to scroll through, and I have better things to write than clickbait. It feels like a lot of NFL teams with a franchise guy under center have fewer blue chips players than most of the squads in search of a QB, which leads ...
!['The opportunity I was looking for': Sean Payton gets 5-year deal from Denver Broncos [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/7b991e488d4f5cbbf40177fa9466c847.jpg)
'The opportunity I was looking for': Sean Payton gets 5-year deal from Denver Broncos [Updated]
There will be no Sean Payton on Fox Sports next season, he has found a new place to coach. ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting that Payton will be the Denver Broncos’ next head coach. The Broncos and Payton’s former team, the New Orleans Saints, finalized compensation....

Lakers and Pelicans stars should be back...sometime soon
Somehow the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans are simultaneously in different and similar situations. One major commonality they share is all-star caliber talent due to soon return to action — Anthony Davis for the Los Angeles Lakers and Brandon Ingram for the Pelicans....

Everybody Hurts sometimes
With three weeks left in the regular season, the Philadelphia Eagles have all but locked up the top seed in the NFC, needing just one win or a loss from both the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers in order to secure home-field advantage through the NFC Championship and a first-round bye. With...

Best in the West
The Golden State Warriors lost again last night. On Tuesday, the Phoenix Suns dropped a game to the lowly Houston Rockets for the second time this month. Those two wins account for 22.2 percent of the Rockets’ victories this season....

Chris Paul is going to lose any argument that’s anti-Zion Williamson dunking
The NBA season is nearly one-third over, and the team with the best record in the Western Conference is… the New Orleans Pelicans. They have the highest average point differential of any team in the conference by almost two points, outscoring teams by 7.1 points per outing....

Week 13.5 NFL Powerless Rankings: Nothing good is happening for these teams
At the intersection of Week 14 and Week 13, it’s time to take an unsettling look at this season’s worst. These are the squads who need a 12th man on the field to keep pace with their peers because whatever they’re doing right now isn’t working. Let’s dive in, but hold your nose, the stench is strong...
