nba Page 44 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Buddy Hield is the type of player who could tilt the odds in a contender’s favor
If there’s any NBA trading block resident who deserves to transition to a contender this season, it’s not James Harden or Damian Lillard, it’s newcomer Buddy Hield. At least Dame Time has advanced to the brink of a Conference Finals. Hield has never even sailed the postseason waters. His 548 games p...

Get ready for lavish sports-themed resorts in college towns, as the expense of fandom continues to increase
Since America encourages maximum luxury that is far too expensive for the average person, of course, a project combining sports and extravagance is headed for college towns. Sports Illustrated has already built a sports-themed resort in the Dominican Republic, where the 2023 Swimsuit issue was shot....

Hakeem Olajuwon charges $50K to teach what cannot be taught — good for him
One of the best/least consequential storylines in all of sports is of the big man who goes to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Dream Shake academy to learn one of the most lethal, and unteachable, moves in the history of the NBA. At $50,000 a session, it’s as close to a Ponzi scheme as you’re going to get without ...

<i>Winning Time</i> is the latest casualty of David Zaslav’s sports media bloodbath at WBD
On Monday, the guillotine hovering over HBO’s Winning Time finally dropped when the series joined a growing collection of shows canceled by the network. Declining ratings and criticism from its stars, who insisted that Adam McKay’s Lakers series based on Jeff Pearlman’s biographical account, turned ...

Elon Musk might be on his way to toppling the sports insider business
The sports insider wars may have to be fought on new battlegrounds. ...

NFL Running backs don’t need to fake injuries to show the league how dangerous their jobs are
This summer, NFL Players Association president J.C. Tretter’s ill-advised suggestion that running backs fake injuries to create leverage set off alarms around the league. On Monday, the NFL finally responded by filing an expected grievance against the NFLPA. ...

Mike Babcock sets a land speed record for being fired for being Mike Babcock
It has to be asked what did the Columbus Blue Jackets think they were going to get by hiring Mike Babcock? ...

Aaron Rodgers and his delusions of grandeur about returning this season
Aaron Rodgers’ first season in New York came to a screeching halt last Monday after suffering a devastating Achilles injury on his fourth snap in his debut game. As football injuries go, an Achilles tear is on the severe end of the spectrum, usually taking at least six months to recover from; even f...

The Houston Astros don’t deserve a first-round bye
With playoff baseball rapidly approaching and the standings nearly complete, this feels like a good time to point out a flaw in the new six-team format (other than increasing the number of games per round). If you’re going to hand out first-round byes, give them to the two best teams in each league....

Houston Rockets abandoning decency by trying to trade Kevin Porter Jr.
Stadium’s Shams Charania reported on Wednesday that the Houston Rockets are looking to trade Kevin Porter Jr. The Rockets are even ready to send several second-round draft picks along with him. In return, Houston is reportedly looking for a player who can “play immediately.”...

Dwight Howard is still salty as hell
At one point, Dwight Howard was one of the biggest stars in the NBA. An eight-time All-Star and All-NBA selection, Howard made five All-Defensive teams and took home Defensive Player of the Year honors three times. After playing with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2021-22 campaig...

The secret to Giannis' success: No fraternizing with the enemy
Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the brightest stars the NBA has to offer. He’s a two-time league MVP, NBA Champion, Finals MVP, seven-time All-Star, and All-NBA selection, among many other accolades. You might wonder how a guy who’s accomplished so much before age 30 keeps the fire lit to come back ...

Kevin Porter Jr. dodged accountability for far too long
The arrest of Kevin Porter Jr. on charges of felony assault and strangulation related to the beating of his girlfriend Kysre Gondrezic early Monday at the Millenium Hilton in Manhattan. was the last straw for the soon-to-be-former Houston Rocket. Prosecutors say Porter punched Gondrezick with an ope...

Giannis Antetokounmpo continues to throw down the gauntlet when it comes to re-signing with Milwaukee
The 2022-23 season was supposed to be the revenge of the Milwaukee Bucks. Their championship defense in 2022 was cut short when Khris Middleton was injured in the first round against the Chicago Bulls. A season that had already been dampened by Brook Lopez missing all but 13 regular-season games. Gi...

Here is what we kind of learned from the USMNT’s week
As we and many others stress, international friendlies are weird. Especially when everyone has to fly over from Europe for two games that don’t count for anything while trying to not get hurt. And for the USMNT, there weren’t really too many players trying to carve out a role, or a bigger role, with...

LeBron James, wife and 2 associates named in federal PED investigation
There hasn’t been a performance-enhancing drugs scandal in basketball. At least, not to the level of, say, the likes of BALCO and Major League Baseball. As close as we came was when the NBA started testing players for HGH before the beginning of the 2015-16 season. The trendy thing to do online at t...

Natural grass wouldn’t have prevented Aaron Rodgers’ injury
It’s always interesting to see how leagues and players’ unions react to injuries. Zaza Pachulia stepped under Kawhi Leonard’s foot, and now NBA defenders can’t impede a shooter’s landing zone. Buster Posey getting blasted by Scott Cousins led to MLB banning plays at the plate. On Monday, Aaron Rodge...

The NBA can try all it wants, player rest is impossible to stop
Remember when the Dallas Mavericks concluded an embarrassing 2022-23 season by not dressing Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić instead of attempting to qualify for the Play-in Tournament? The Mavericks were fined $750,000, and I think that the NBA reached a breaking point in its never-ending saga of star-...

Michigan State thinks the answer to another public sexual misconduct scandal is more Mark Dantonio
In February 2020, Mark Dantonio — by far the most successful football coach in Michigan State’s history — retired. The stress of managing 120 student-athletes every year wore on him, Dantonio said. He wanted to make his life less complicated, so he was stepping away from football and East Lansing....

LeBron James is Team USA’s shadow GM and possibly its next director
LeBron James is back to doing what he does best, flexing those roster construction muscles as the league’s greatest shadow GM. According to Shams Charania and Joe Vardon’s report in The Athletic, an effort to recruit Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum and Draymond Green, is being...