nikola Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Phoenix Suns fixed one problem while creating another
The Phoenix Suns traded DeAndre to pay Paul in the three-team deal that sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks. If you didn’t catch the turn of phrase, or are confused, allow me to explain why the Suns merely shifted problems instead of solving them. Yes, they shored up much-needed depth, but no...

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has taken quite a star turn during the FIBA World Championships
It was a long shot for Jordan to qualify for the second round at the 2023 FIBA World Championships. They are 0-3 through three games and were throttled by USA, 110-62. However, through the defeats a player bloomed. The leading scorer in the FIBA World Cup is, unsurprisingly, Luka Dončić at 30 points...

If Noah Lyles is confused about NBA superiority, he should buy a ticket to the Rondae Hollis-Jefferson show
You would think Team USA gold medalists would stick together. Instead, the newly crowned fastest man in the world, Noah Lyles wasted his coronation at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest by dumping on the NBA. More specifically, he took aim at the National Basketball Association taking the...

Giannis Antetokounmpo sounds more excited to play in Saudi Arabia than Milwaukee
Giannis Antetokoumpo is already the savior of pro basketball in Milwaukee. Bucks ownership was threatening to relocate to Seattle while the city hedged on providing the funding for a stadium upgrade before The Greek Freak singlehandedly yanked them out of basketball purgatory. Nearly a decade later,...

Either Kevin Garnett set Anthony Davis up to fail, or he's trolling us all
Kevin Garnett is an NBA champion, former MVP, and one of the best two-way players the league has ever produced. He’s also a loud-mouthed trash talker, and that’s meant in the most respectful way possible. Garnett talked a lot and still does. KG commented on his expectations for Los Angeles Lakers fo...

Nikola Jokić might be the most boring top-rated player ever in <em>NBA 2K24</em>
The player most deserving of the highest rating in NBA 2K24 is Nikola Jokić. Whether he is actually the best player in the NBA is irrelevant to him earning that distinction. The way that he bulldozed his opposition while leading the Denver Nuggets to their first NBA Championship, no other player sho...

Trade James Harden for Grade-A role players, you coward!
When Daryl Morey says he’s not going to be irrational with a James Harden trade, he is to be trusted. We saw what happened with Ben Simmons, and the plain-clothes staring contest that resulted in Harden becoming a Philadelphia 76er. It was an arduous ordeal that festered until mid-February 2022, and...

Here we go already with the Wemby MVP talk
Hyperbole often rules the day in sports media in the social media age. Everyone is almost subconsciously attempting to go viral during every waking moment. Enter former NBA player and current TNT analyst Kenny Smith. While calling a summer league game this week, Victor Wembanyama’s name came up in t...

Where should expectations be set for Victor Wembanyama’s summer league dress rehearsal?
Victor Wembanyama’s career prologue is almost as long as he is. It already feels like Wembanyama’s in his second NBA season doesn’t it? It feels like just yesterday, when he was in the (French) Finals at the exact same time as Nikola Jokic. According to Marc Stein, Wembanyama’s scheduled NBA debut h...

The Reggie Evans Bad Basketball Basketball Hall of Fame 2023 inductees
Studies have shown that negative news garners more of the public’s attention than positive news, so with that knowledge, I propose an alternative to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The Basketball Hall of Fame has the prestige, but it doesn’t generate as much conversation as Twitter ramblings f...

NBA contenders might have to start holding onto those first- and second-round picks
The Golden State Warriors have been the model franchise for how to keep a core group together. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green were able to stay united for a decade for a few different reasons — salary cap increase, luck, well-timed contracts — but No. 1 on that list is they spent mon...

Will a Championship trip to Vegas convince Nikola Jokić the NBA lifestyle is actually pretty cool?
I never mind professional athletes who don’t get wrapped up in the celebrity lifestyle. It isn’t for everybody, and it’s also a second job. Nikola Jokić wanting to hightail it back to Serbia after winning an NBA Championship is perfectly reasonable, but I do think he enjoyed Las Vegas....

Michael Malone is living your best life
Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone was obsessively on topic throughout the entire postseason. No win was too big, and none of their four losses set off panic meters. Even with a 3-1 lead in the Finals, the coach preached urgency and wanted his team to play like they were the ones facing elimination...

Karl-Anthony Towns could have been Nikola Jokic in another reality, but not this one
“If you gotta say it, you ain’t it” is a phrase Minnesota Timberwolves big Karl-Anthony Towns never learned. During a recent appearance on the PatBevPod with former T-Wolves teammate Pat Beverley, Towns was inhaling too much of the copium pipe with Pat and in a fantastical excuse-making mood discuss...

2023 All-Postseason Team, a FANtastic performance by these 5 players
America, glad to see the NBA playoffs were able to hold your attention again. With an average of 5.47 million viewers per game, the 2023 postseason was the most watched in five years. And more importantly, per Darren Rovell, since April of the 20 most watched programs by Americans under 50, the NBA ...

Deadspin's 2023 All-NBA Finals Team
The 2023 NBA Finals was not a sexy matchup on paper. A team from the mountain time zone with a mountain in the middle of lane, against a team from South Florida with no flash. These were the two teams that kept America from the NBA’s most classic championship matchup, Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston C...

Yeah, Stan Kroenke still sucks
A large portion of Coloradans hasn’t been able to watch the Denver Nuggets since 2019. Those who have Comcast, which is most people in the Centennial State, missed Nikola Jokić’s two MVP seasons, and this year’s finals-winning group, the first in franchise history. Yet I see all these headlines toda...

Nikola Jokić made a mockery of Heat culture
Imagine being Pat Riley, Jimmy Butler, and the Miami Heat’s training staff right now. They spent two decades preaching the advantages of elite fitness, conditioning, and mining for diamonds in the rough. Every season, Miami mandates that its players maintain a body fat percentage low enough to go wa...

Meet Jimmy Butler, the NBA’s Neymar
They go about it in opposite ways, but Neymar and Jimmy Butler end in the same place. They’re both very good to great players. They’re billed as epicenters. It’s just as important, if not more so, that they’re seen as THE guys than just being them. Neymar goes about it with flash and showmanship, wh...