npr Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Jayland Walker share a similar experience
LeBron James and Michael Jordan approach basketball and life in starkly different ways. Jordan had to be convinced into consistently sharing the ball with his teammates, while James has been criticized for involving his teammates in the offense too frequently. James is a significantly larger man and...

Oneil Cruz is in Pittsburgh to provide no hope
The most exciting time, other than any actual championship, for a fan of a team that is supposedly in a total rebuild is when the hopes for the future start to populate that Major League roster. There isn’t any pressure of “having” to win, and no longer are these players relegated to the myth of whi...

Was MJF really talking about Adam Cole?
We’re now deep into the second week of “MJF: Hamlet or Veruca Salt?” Maxwell Jaxwell didn’t appear on Dynamite this week, wasn’t mentioned, and there were stories that Turner execs wanted any mention of him scrubbed from AEW production. He isn’t even on the opening video package at the moment....

CM Punk's injury clears the way for MJF
Before All Elite Wrestling World Champion CM Punk could address the Ontario, Cali., crowd during Friday night’s episode of Rampage, his eyes were bright red. As tears developed around his corneas, it was easy to know what was going through the Second City Saint’s mind. And he hadn’t opened his mouth...

2022 NBA Finals: How the teams stack up and storylines to watch
The NBA Finals are finally upon us, and it’s one of the better matchups anyone could’ve hoped for. There is plenty of star power, and each game should be tightly contested as both teams are known for their stifling defense. The league should be thoroughly pleased with the series we’re set to embark ...

Congrats Boston, but you have no shot against the Warriors
The Boston Celtics have torn through the playoffs, eliminating each team that’s ousted them in the last three postseasons. After a seven-game slugfest with the Miami Heat, the C’s are in Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2010, led by Jayson Tatum, who is making a strong case for ent...

The Grizzlies and Heat reacted completely differently to plays where their stars were seemingly injured
Acting like you’ve been there before might be cliché in the world of sports, but it really is the only way to operate for some franchises. For other organizations, it’s a few words some lame old guy threw together ages ago....

Vince McMahon was just waiting for the dust to clear
It is hard to miss that Monday Night Raw has been built around, in large part, Riddle and Austin Theory of late. Riddle is one half of the wildly popular RK Bro tag team champs with legend Randy Orton, and appears to be on his way to headlining the company’s next PPV. You might wonder why he isn’t “...

Hunter Greene is who Major League Baseball would promote more if it cared about diversity
Playing baseball is hard. Living up to the hype is a bit harder. But so far, Hunter Greene seems up to the task. It’s too bad the league he plays in isn’t....

The Japanese pitching sensation that refuses to let hitters reach base
One of the biggest stories in Major League Baseball right now is the dominance of 27-year-old Japanese rookie Seiya Suzuki. In 10 games Suzuki is slashing .429/.564/.929 with four home runs and 11 runs batted in. With Suzuki’s early success and Ohtani’s 2021 MVP campaign fresh in everybody’s minds, ...

Japanese baseball is light years ahead of MLB
Major League Baseball is great. As long as no one is complaining about the unwritten rules and Nick Castellanos isn’t at the plate, the game is laid back and fun. I doubt I could enjoy it any more than I already do....

Claude Giroux trade signifies the Flyers are a total failure
Knowing that the dagger is coming doesn’t make it hurt any less....

Jaylen Brown injury speaks to the fragility of Boston’s makeup
I almost wrote about the Celtics on Tuesday because I heard about these projections that had them with heavy title odds, but when I went to FiveThirtyEight to try to find them, it felt like I was trying to decipher binary code. So I held off to wait to see if anything came of the research I loosely ...

Ovechkin ‘calls for peace’ but fails to denounce Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
Alexander Ovechkin finally addressed the crisis in Ukraine, saying some words in a press conference in Philadelphia that sounded nice but were ultimately meaningless....

Fedor Smolov is that guy
After years of political tension between the countries, Russia officially invaded Ukraine on Wednesday, bringing swift sanctions and reaction from around the world, as countries almost unanimously opposed the actions spearheaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin....

Cody Rhodes is nuts
Cody and Brandi Rhodes must be insane, right? The couple integral to the founding of All Elite Wrestling, with a strong family heritage inside the squared circle, has left the upstart promotion they helped lay brick and tile for and could head back to their former employer, World Wrestling Entertain...

I just want to watch Keith Lee throw people out the building all the time
When you boil down what people love about AEW so much (and Tony Khan’s running of it), it’s that the company and he usually just do the simplest thing. Just give the people what they want. It sounds like it should be obvious, but there are a lot of ways to overthink it....

Josh Allen deserved so much better
Josh Allen had a spectacular postseason. A top-tier showing in NFL history. And it’s over after two games, eight quarters away from a probable lift of the Lombardi Trophy....

The only question for the Canadiens is what took so long?
So If you feel like you heard some faint swearing in the air, and it vaguely sounded French (though Quebecois only vaguely sound French), don’t worry, you weren’t alone....