lol Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Kamila Valieva’s saga sets a dangerous precedent for skaters
It wouldn’t be a proper Winter Olympics without a figure skating melodrama. It’s earned a reputation as the Olympics’ closest equivalent to soap opera. In 2002, a judge cheating scandal led to a reform of the entire scoring system. Tonya Harding’s sabotage of Nancy Kerrigan before the ‘92 Olympics a...

In a surprise to no one, Russian Olympic team in another doping scandal
Only seven years after a comprehensive Russian state-sponsored doping program was discovered, and two years after Russia was consequently sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Russian Olympic Committee’s 15-year-old star skater Kamila Valieva has tested positive for a banned substance, pos...

If Lillard and McCollum didn’t work, then why was it so much fun?
I just saw CJ McCollum in Chicago like a week ago. He seemed fine — he had 29 on 13-of-23 from the floor and played well — but the team wasn’t itself anymore. It was a Sunday morning, and I was in bed when my girlfriend asked, “Hey Portland’s playing today. Want to go?”...

The Beijing Olympics are everything you’d thought they’d be
At least we can say the Winter Olympics are practiced at holding their events in a communist dictatorship, as they’ve held two of the last three in one. We’re just about three or four days into the whole thing, and already the stories of athletes being held against their will, shitty facilities, unp...

So what is the Olympic spirit, anyway?
We’ve all known that these upcoming Olympic games were a bad idea, and that’s putting it insultingly lightly. When they were first announced, even if you could get past the tiny little morsel of the egregious human rights abuses of the Chinese government (and you shouldn’t), there’s the whole thing ...

Damian Lillard’s injury, sadly, is exactly what the Trail Blazers needed
If the Portland Trail Blazers ever wondered what an unfortunate but well-timed injury looks like, Damian Lillard’s abdominal issue is it. The team announced Thursday that the All-NBA guard underwent surgery to repair it, and he will be reevaluated in six weeks, with a six-to-eight week timetable to ...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR: The worst of 2021
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR: Bishop Sycamore, Antonio Brown, and other honorable mentions
Bishop Sycamore, for getting itself broadcast on ESPN despite being a fake school and not winning a game in two years...

CJ and Dame have been fun, but if the Blazers want to salvage this season it’s time to say bye to McCollum
It’s far from all CJ McCollum’s fault the Portland Trail Blazers are struggling, and currently the 10th seed in the Western Conference with an 11-14 record. His field goal and free throw percentages are down, but he’s still averaging 20.6 points per game and shooting nearly 40 percent from the 3-poi...

At least the IOC is admitting its lies, in a way
The IOC admitted yesterday that the charade they tried to pull was pretty much full of shit, without saying it was full of shit, to try and save whatever face it could. You see, the IOC doesn’t want anything to hurt its precious Games that are just two months away and in Beijing, even if that means ...

Neil Olshey firing is only going to prolong the wait for your Dame dream trade
Let’s try an exercise. Something happens to the Portland Trail Blazers franchise, and they don’t immediately try to trade Damian Lillard. It’s to the point that I wouldn’t be shocked if media outlets have a pre-written template for Blazers stories....

Sorry, I just don’t trust the IOC
The IOC continues to happily eat whatever the Chinese government is willing to shovel to it. Yesterday IOC President Thomas Bach allegedly had a 30-minute video confab with Peng Shuai, in the hopes that would quell all the questions and fears about her whereabouts and well-being after she went off t...

IOC makes it clear what it is
The case of tennis player Peng Shuai gets scarier by the day. Jane McManus covered the first steps a couple days ago. Since then, the Chinese government, through their propaganda channels, released a statement that Peng is safe, except no one believes the evidence it produced. Which is what any reas...

NBA GMs are apparently feeling unfairly maligned
NBA general managers are circling the wagons. ...

Damian Lillard should have forced his way out of Portland
Hindsight is 20/20. But even then, sometimes people just don’t want to see what’s right in front of them....

Adam Silver set the precedent with Donald Sterling — he must continue it with Robert Sarver and Neil Olshey
Mark Cuban saw it coming. Adam Silver did not. ...

Report: Blazers’ team president being investigated for allegedly creating a toxic work environment, intimidation
Christmas might have come early for Portland Trail Blazer fans, as team president Neil Olshey is being investigated for allegedly creating a toxic workplace, Yahoo Sports reported Saturday. Olshey has been with the organization as general manager since 2012, and despite the Trail Blazers making the ...

U.S. Soccer offers equal pay to USMNT and USWNT... <i>kinda?</i>
It’s been one of the longer lasting sagas in American sports, as the U.S. Women’s National team seeks either a new contract or a resolution to their lawsuit against U.S. Soccer that sees them make huge gains in pay for representing their country. U.S. Soccer would have you believe that it’s recently...

This wasn’t such a good idea, but we knew that
While we’ve all been distracted by watching Olympians from around the world set new records on the athletic field, COVID has been setting some records of its own....

The IOC needs to leave Raven Saunders alone
The International Olympic Committee just needs to leave Raven Saunders alone....