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The origins of the Chris Paul-Patrick Beverley feud, explained
Patrick Beverley sure didn’t waste any time jumping on the Chris Paul slander wagon following Phoenix’ Game 7 loss to Dallas. Pat Bev was up bright and early on ESPN, throwing jab after jab after jab at long-time rival CP3. Nowadays, it feels like we hear the phrase, “keep it real,” far too often, b...

We have a feeling Michael Jordan took this personally
Adam Silver might be receiving a call from somebody very soon. It’ll be a friendly call from one of the NBA team owners saying that he will be in New York for a visit shortly. He will suggest that the two of them play golf soon, and as soon as that request is made, the commissioner should turn his p...

A look back at what 'Winning Time' accomplished
In the final episode of Winning Time, Season 1 quickly does away with the spectacle and gets straight to the facts. The series’ biggest conceit is as a series based on real-life, it can’t deviate from the truth. But, for all the defending creators Max Borenstein and Adam McKay have done for the seri...

IDIOT OF THE MONTH: It’s pretty much downhill from here
Welcome, once more, to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we catalogue the most bleak recesses of professional athletics and mock them. Hooray!...

<em>Winning Time </em>Episode 9 “Acceptable Loss”
Jerry West is out for blood. The real Jerry West, that is, not the Jason Clarke avatar we have seen stalk and storm through the first season of Winning Time. The flesh and bone West, who is a part of the Lakers organization as much as Kobe Bryant or Magic Johnson, is really fucking pissed. Recently...

Jerry West and the Showtime Lakers are mad about their depiction in a Hollywood production of the most Hollywood era in sports
Jerry, Kareem, and Magic are pissed....

When is HBO green-lighting Whining Time: The story of the 2021-22 Lakers?
I’m not here to defend LeBron James. As recently as two weeks ago, I gave him shit for chasing the scoring title because it’s the only thing he can win this year. James also has enough obsessed, annoying fans willing to defend him by any memes possible, and this pitiful Lakers team was a failure of ...

Becoming Kareem
To capture the intellectual acuity of Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, an actor portraying the seven-footer would need to possess a towering level of gravitas. Winning Time creator Max Borenstein had said casting Kareem was the hardest of the Showtime Lakers. When Solomon Hughes walked through the...

If Giannis wins his third MVP this year we can put the best player on the planet debate to rest
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo can join some elite company, should he take home his third NBA MVP award at the end of the regular season. If he can edge out Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić, we can finally lay the best player in the world debate to rest. We can’t continue to deny Antetoko...

LeBron’s entire year has been a Razzie
On Oscar weekend, Space Jam: A New Legacy is being honored with a surprising distinction that has LeBron James stans flying their flags at half-mast. This isn’t a LeBron hate space, but we’ve got to keep it 100. I used to joke that LeBron would have been the perfect casting choice for Magic Johnson ...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Round of 16
Bugs is the best bunny left in our Sweet 16...

March Madness has turned to goo for MSU coach Tom Izzo
The time has come to downgrade Tom Izzo’s rep. For the lack of a better word, it has turned to goo....

<i>Winning Time</i> Episode 3: 'The Best Is Yet To Come'
Damn, even legendary Chick Hearn is a bastard? Winning Time is hell-bent on tearing down all the NBA totems. Even the adored voice of the Lakers for 40-plus years, Hearn, is caught calling black security guards “gorillas.” Writers Max Borenstein and Rodney Barnes show us the circus behind the curtai...

<em>Winning Time</em> ‘The Swan’ a review
For Americans, but specifically African-Americans, 1991 was a hell of a year....

Let’s talk the Lakers, the Magic and HBO's '<em>Winning Time'</em><em></em>
Before the Los Angeles Lakers drafted Earvin “Magic” Johnson with the first overall pick in 1979, the league was on the verge of a fate worse than death — irrelevancy. ...

Lakers fans might be upset that Shaq didn’t make ESPN’s 75th anniversary top 10, but is there even a legit argument for him making it?
Shaquille O’Neal is seen by many as the most physically dominant and imposing player the NBA has ever produced. Knowing this, you’d think O’Neal would be a lock as a top 10 all-time player on any list. ESPN recently released its ranking of the top 75 NBA players (76 to be exact) for the league’s 75t...

The best NBA Players to never make an All-Star appearance
The National Basketball Association has had some great players step onto the court in its 75-year history. Some outstanding players have been left off the All-Star team each season in the NBA. Many of these names get snubbed year after year, and others made their names off big moments but probably s...

Three years later and nothing has changed, the Lakers are still a mess
Looking back at the Russell Westbrook trade, it makes sense what they were trying to do. The Los Angeles Lakers’ 2020-21 season was cut at the kneecaps by injury. It was the second time that had happened in three seasons. They needed a third star so that if they lost LeBron James or Anthony Davis or...

Magic wants no part of scripted series about the Showtime Lakers
It’s a shame that Magic Johnson wants no part of this new HBO series about the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s. The trailer for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, was released in early December, and the series will debut on HBO Max in March 2022....

LeBron James sets his sights on Kareem’s points record you never thought would be broken
Remember, LeBron James is not a pure scorer, so we’ve been told since his high school days. What was supposed to make his game special was his once-in-a-generation athleticism to go along with his Magic Johnson-like court vision. James dunking on the world and launching passes from one side of the c...