nate Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The biggest NBA bandwagon fan base at the midseason mark
As someone who is loyal to a fault, people who hop team allegiances never cease to make my brain hemorrhage. I don’t know how the LeBron James cult does it. “He’s my favorite player” is what a child says when they first discover what sports are. Yeah, I loved Penny Hardaway, too, but when I moved to...

Tennis is having the goldenest of all Golden Ages
It’s strange how normalized greatness is during something’s golden age. If you look at music for example, hip-hop peaked in the ’90s for a lot of people like classic rock did in the ’60s and ’70s. However, even when 2Pac and Biggie were at the apex, rappers like Nas and Jay-Z weren’t in the picture ...

Shohei Ohtani is on the cover of MLB the Show 22, much to the chagrin of Stephen A. Smith
When you talk about an audience gravitating to the tube, or to the ballpark, to actually watch you, I don’t think it helps that the number one face is a dude that needs an interpreter so you can understand what the hell he’s saying....

International athletes to watch at this year’s Winter Games
Finding noteworthy athletes from the rest of the world might still be easier than cherry picking from the America tree, but it’s harder to decide which multi-medalist athlete or teenage phenom to leave off the list. I tried to get a nice mix of both, but there are quite a few times when I simply had...

<i>My time in Permian Panthers country</i>
I didn’t know how I was going to feel eight months out of college packing up everything I own, shoving it into my midsize sedan, and moving nearly two time zones away from the East Coast for the first time. But I knew for growth personally and professionally, I needed to feel it....

SEC out to conquer more than football as Auburn hoops is No. 1 for first time in school history
The Southeastern Conference doesn’t have a plan only to dominate in football. The league’s leadership believes a monopoly, like its 12 of the last 16 national gridiron championships, including the last three with a trio of different schools, can be achieved across the board....

Three possible trade scenarios for John Collins
What the hell is happening in Atlanta? They went on a Cinderella-esque run in last season’s playoffs, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals. This year? They currently sit 12th in the East, out of the Play-In Tournament, and 22nd in the entire NBA. During the summer of 2020-21, the Hawks happily wen...

Sorry Nate MacKinnon, but the NHL All-Star Game should be a Participation Game
What should an All-Star Game be: an opportunity to see the best players all playing in the same game, or a celebration of the sport and league that brings fans together?...

Monday night's Bulls-Hawks game showed how Omicron is owning the NBA
Just two days after the Omicron variant ruined the highly-anticipated Christmas Day lineup that the NBA unveiled months ago, the Chicago Bulls traveled to Atlanta to face the Hawks in a game that had the communications staff of both teams Googling the names on their rosters....

Deron Williams defeated Frank Gore via split decision and Gore is already saying he’s ready for another taste
All current, former, and future NBA players should thank and praise former NBA All-Star Deron Williams for bringing a little credibility back to the ballers arena. For those who still believe that all basketball players are soft in comparison to their football counterparts, then you probably didn’t ...

Be a pepper and throw some footballs to win tuition
Is there any better representation of American society than the annual championship Saturday halftime Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway? Hey kids, here’s a chance to throw some footballs in a can for the chance to not graduate in crippling debt! ...
![Ref allegedly uses N-word during Tennessee high school basketball game [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/2caaeeea486c3f05f6b12ba0b82d0bc2.jpg)
Ref allegedly uses N-word during Tennessee high school basketball game [UPDATED]
The story out of Smyrna, Tenn., on Wednesday night appears to be both rage-inducing and fairly self-explanatory, but there’s a lot more that needs explanation, and a lot of questions that need answering. ...

Welcome to hell, NHL! Your stay is long overdue
The NHL is not in a good place, and that’s good. For too long have victims of high-ranking members in NHL front offices gone unseen and unheard....

Weird flex to pivot from swastikagate to cozying up with alleged sex predators, but you do you, Herschel
It was only last month that the world was reminded — and presented with sickening details — of Ric Flair’s alleged sexual assault of a flight attendant on WWE’s infamous “Flight From Hell” in 2002....

32 teams need to hear this: There is no pitching formula for the playoffs
Many years ago now, baseball pundits and fans tried to come up with a “secret sauce” for success in the playoffs. It can be pretty infuriating to simply accept that the sport’s biggest prize is handed out at the conclusion of a tournament that is essentially random. There had to be a reason these th...

From Kap and Tiger to Herschel and Evander – Trump’s political career relies on using Black athletes
Donald Trump refuses to go away, which isn’t surprising. But, when an uninvited guest keeps showing up, at some point, discovering how they manage to get there becomes imperative. The former occupant of the White House discovered that using Black athletes for his benefit is the best vehicle....

2021 NFL Preview - NFC East: Who will emerge as ‘unbreakable’ from this train wreck?
Welcome to the NFC East — home to the teams that engender the most yelling on Twitter and, not unrelated to that, where the entire division last season finished a combined 17 games under .500....

Ben Wallace is the perfect embodiment of his era
Look at a photo of Rudy Gobert in any game. Typically, he’ll be wearing the same knee sleeves with padding that most other players do, maybe an arm-sleeve or two, and that’s probably it. Let’s not make this about Gobert, though — let’s take another center: Nikola Jokić. Usually, it’s just leg sleeve...

NFL RedZone Previews, Part 1: <i>Every</i> Touchdown? From <i>Every</i> Game? Really?
The NFL’s television schedule doesn’t tell you everything about who’s expected to be good in a given season. The Cowboys and Steelers will always get plenty of games in prime time, because no matter what, they’re going to draw eyeballs....

Deadspin’s deep dive into umpire stats: accuracy and consistency are key
Umpires are supposed to get every call right to the point where they have virtually no impact on the outcome of the game. Therefore, whenever an umpire does affect the outcome of a game, people start to take notice. ...