one Page 76 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Rockets are the NBA’s most ambitious offseason franchise
After the Denver Nuggets championship parade, it will be the Rockets time to shine. The Houston Rockets’ ‘Light the fuse” mantra has encapsulated their offseason machinations since Jalen Green’s bold IG Live set the tone for the summer by vowing to reach the postseason in 2024. That’s easier said th...

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...

If the WNBA was treated like a white league, decisions about Brittney Griner’s safety and chartered flights wouldn’t have to be made
Brittney Griner is back in the news — but she didn’t have to be. Over the last few days, conversations about women’s basketball dominated the sports world after Griner was harassed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport by a Blaze Media YouTube personality — a white man. What came next was a ren...

For those famous enough to be asked to throw a first pitch, learn from Roquan Smith — lob it
Roquan Smith is one of the best athletes on the planet. He knows it, because he has bet on himself for his entire career, and the result is that in his sixth NFL season, he will be the highest-paid off-ball linebacker in the league. He fills gaps, chases down running backs, causes turnovers, plays p...

Manchester City are so good they can survive a Pep Guardiola brain freeze
The joke had become the only hold for any non-Manchester City fan out there. The joke was that Pep Guardiola would always out-Pep himself in the Champions League, and find a new, and creative way to blow it for a team that probably should have won the trophy a while ago. The joke was certainly based...

The Nuggets are immune to the Heat’s Dark Arts
The Miami Heat’s success has been hard to define all postseason. Words like resilience, toughness, and intelligence certainly apply, but that can be said about any team in any sport that makes a deep playoff run. No, Miami has been Jonathan Crane, injecting fear into Gothamites and Bostonians alike....

Donald Trump taking away Miami's spotlight like OJ's Bronco chase
June is typically the unofficial end of the sports calendar and a month-long sporting season finale. Once the calendar flips to late July, MLB’s All-Star festivities, intermittent tennis Grand Slams, and international football competitions are the major scheduled events to keep us going until the NF...

The Florida Panthers get their sharp ends back
Most want to attribute some kind of special potion or Cornwallis-like strategy cooked up by coach Paul Maurice and GM Bill Zito to explain the Florida Panthers’ success. After all, there has to be something mystical that got the lowest-seeded team to the Stanley Cup Final. But it isn’t that hard. Ma...

Chris Paul is done as a starting point guard
On Wednesday evening, Bleacher Report insider Chris Haynes’ report that the Suns were prepared to waive point guard Chris Paul before a June 28 deadline which would guarantee his entire $30 million salary for the next season triggered a fury of interest in the 38-year-old. Shams Charania and Adrian ...

Lionel Messi is the only person who can move tickets like Taylor Swift
This article is a veritable dream for those enslaved (or in love) with SEO-driven content. Taylor Swift and Lionel Messi in the same headline? If I could fold in the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Yankees, and Dallas Cowboys, I’d be up for a $10 Starbucks gift card. While I’m not ruling that out — I n...

What Lionel Messi coming to MLS means — and what it doesn’t
MLS, arguably, have already gotten what they wanted from the signing of Lionel Messi. They were in the headlines the past couple days, a place the league has struggled to stay in. It is something, for the league, that ESPN.com has a Messi headline right next to a headline about Liverpool signing Ale...

Does Dalvin Cook’s departure foreshadow a Kirk Cousins exit?
The Minnesota Vikings have made it official: It’s all on Kirk Cousins. Skol and longtime running back Dalvin Cook are parting ways, according to Tom Pelissero, and thus the front office is putting the onus squarely on Cousins’ shoulders. Whether this is a new direction for the offense, or general ma...

Lionel Messi retirement tour is coming to the US, not Saudi Arabia
Labeling MLS as a “retirement league” has been unnecessarily callous for a few seasons now. It is much more than that, and has become more of a selling league, i.e. a league that is mostly interested in developing young players to sell off for big profits to Europe to then be reinvested and start th...

WNBA, NSWL TV rights are more valuable than ever as leagues seek new deals
Hours before the WNBA’s New York Liberty were set to take the court against the Connecticut Sky at 2 p.m. on Sunday, the crowd near the players’ entrance was already entrenched. Parents and their kids, couples, and groups of friends, many decked out in shirts and shoes with that distinctive Statue s...

The Sooners survived Stanford again and appear destined for another WCWS title
It’s over. Maybe it was over before the festivities began in Oklahoma City? That’s why you play the game right? This year’s Women’s College World Series had eight national seeds survive regionals and super regionals to become the elite group in college softball. Seven teams hoping to knock the crown...

We still can’t have normal conversations about Nikola Jokić
SBNation writer Mat Issa tweeted out an observation following Game 1 of the NBA Finals. He noticed that the Denver Nuggets were able to get a defensive stop because of something that Nikola Jokić did at the free-throw line....

Nuggets' Mike Malone has coached more in the past two days than he has all playoffs
In-game coaching is only a part of the equation, which is evident by the way Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone has been waving his hands and trying to get his players attention since their Game 1 win. While he can’t call a timeout, huddle up his team, and scream at them to stay focused, he’s been ...

Frank Vogel is an upgrade over Monty Williams — for a discount price
A year after getting unceremoniously released through the trap door LeBron James has designed into the floor beneath the head coach’s seat on the bench, Frank Vogel has re-emerged as the head coach of the Phoenix Suns. The 49-year-old Vogel and the Phoenix Suns are familiar with each other’s games. ...

Miami Heat can’t survive NBA Finals with a punchdrunk Jimmy Butler
Jimmy Buckets was in standby mode for Game 1. Maybe it was the altitude that Ball Center resides at, or the altitude of expectations, but regular season Jimmy Butler pulled up for Game 1. Butler seemed more intent on picking his spots and taking the Denver Nuggets’ temperature. Likewise, the Miami H...
