mark Page 33 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Coach K is retiring — Duke Basketball will be buck wild next season
Bonkers. Crazy. Nuts....

If only playoff hockey could just be playoff hockey and not these garbage hits
When hockey fans tell you, and they will tell you, that playoff hockey is the best thing in sports, what they’re imagining is that every game, every series, looks like Game 2 of the Avalanche and Knights. The thing is, of course, it doesn’t, and a lot of series are just noisy slogs as coaches really...

If it’s not the Leafs this season, which teams have the best (worst?) shot at passing the Rangers 54-year Cup futility?
The New York Rangers are the historic gold standard for futility in the NHL, having gone 54 years without winning the Stanley Cup until finally getting the job done in 1994 (see Mark Messier with the Cup above) — after decades of being taunted with “1940” chants in enemy arenas....

Top 5 NHL playoff saves of all time
We always remember the goals: Bobby Orr flying through the air, Ray Bourque scoring in the Stanley Cup Finals at 40 years old, and Matteau! Matteau! Matteau! Legendary moments. But what about the goals that didn’t happen? What about the goals that were snagged away with a flash of the leather or a f...

Hats off to a great deal in Vegas
The Golden Knights traded a couple of draft choices to get Mattias Janmark from Chicago in April, and whatever those picks turn out to be, Vegas can rest easy that it was worth it....

This is the Jimmy Butler I remember
The Bucks-Heat series was supposed to be one of the most intriguing of the first round. Last year’s Eastern Conference champ, going up against a Bucks team that, if they were to spit it early for the second straight year, could be facing some kind of organizational overhaul. There was the added spic...

Lions lionsing about alert: Kicking the tires on Todd Gurley
The Detroit Lions, who are contending for the No. 1 overall pick next year (yes, already), yet fail to admit it, might bring in an aging running back with arthritis to replace another other aging running back because they couldn’t possibly fathom giving their young, do-everything superstar running b...

Maybe it’s about Connor Hellebuyck, not Connor McDavid
The reflex is to point and laugh at the Edmonton Oilers once again. It’s combined with frustration that the game’s best player is leashed to such a clown car of an organization, one of the most brilliant individual seasons going completely to waste. And if you’re a long-term hockey writer or analyst...

Home cookin’ won’t be equal for all NBA playoff teams
For the first time in two years, we might actually get to talk about home-court advantage in the NBA playoffs, but in a weird, 2021-ish kind of way....

The Charlotte Hornets are doomed to run the ‘treadmill of mediocrity’
The “treadmill of mediocrity” is a term coined by former Portland Trail Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard in 2011. It’s pro basketball limbo — being good enough to sneak into the playoffs but not good enough to win, yet not quite bad enough to earn a top-5 draft pick and select a serious game-changer. And ...

Kyrie Irving is the NBA’s MVP – Most Valuable Person
When Weldon Irvine wrote “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” for Nina Simone in the late ‘60s, he was talking about folks like Kyrie Irving....

The obvious case for Connor McDavid as unanimous MVP
The Stanley Cup playoffs started on Saturday, which is weird because the NHL regular season continued on Saturday, as the Canucks handed the Oilers a 4-1 loss that was notable only because Connor McDavid picked up his league-best 72nd assist, which also wrapped up the scoring title for the presumpti...

We'll never see another Doc Gooden
You know you’re getting old when you remember Doc Gooden’s no-hitter with the Yankees on May 14, 1996. It was now 25 years ago — so long ago that the Mets have gone through multiple waves of promising young pitchers who ultimately disappointed: Pulsipher, Wilson, Isringhausen. Harvey, etc....

Patrick Baldwin Jr.’s commitment to UW-Milwaukee is a fascinating tale of basketball, family, and money
On the surface, Patrick Baldwin Jr.’s Wednesday morning commitment to play college basketball next season for his dad at UW-Milwaukee doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. But when you peel back the layers, you realize that it’s an intriguing case of a top-5 recruit turning down offers fro...

The NCAA should dump Mark Emmert and bring in Shane McMahon, because, well, HERE COMES THE MONEY!
Shane McMahon uses the Naughty by Nature song “Here Comes the Money” as his WWE entrance theme, and, well, his enthusiastic dance to it does fit how it feels to see the NCAA finally coming to terms with the fact that it cannot grab every last dollar associated with college sports....

NBA will respond to Zion injury in way NHL has yet to learn
David Griffin can expect to find himself writing a check to the NBA after the Pelicans executive blasted the league over the lack of calls for Zion Williamson in the paint, now that the star big man will be out indefinitely with a broken finger....

Albert Pujols’ career wasn’t supposed to end like this
Albert Pujols’ lifetime numbers are utterly staggering. He has 667 home runs, that’s more than Willie Mays. 3,253 hits, more than all but 14 players, more than hitting machines like Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn and George Brett. More than some guy named Napoleon Lajoie, who played 120 fucking years ago and...

Baseball didn’t anticipate this odd rash of no-hitters, which there are more of than 'count' because 'rules'
John Means pitched this season’s third no-hitter on Wednesday afternoon in Seattle, except it was really the fourth, as Major League Baseball keeps finding out that whatever oddities are available to be achieved, someone eventually will achieve them....

Terry Bradshaw saying Aaron Rodgers should just shut up is hilarious hypocrisy
Terry Bradshaw has had enough of the Aaron Rodgers drama in Green Bay, and the Hall of Famer believes that the solution is for the reigning NFL MVP to just shut up and play....

Idiot of the Month: Aaron Rodgers leads pack with monumentally bad ‘IMDb for sports’
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we make fun of famous (and non-famous!) people who have done stupid things. As usual, our cup runneth over....