rant Page 19 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Half of the road teams took 1-0 leads in the First Round of the NBA Playoffs — welcome to April Madness
Just weeks after March Madness gave us an NCAA Tournament that provided multiple historic upsets during its first weekend, it looks like the pros in the NBA took that personally. Four of the eight matchups from this past weekend’s Game Ones were won by the road team. And one of them was the Miami He...
Hey NBA— stop allowing players to 'defend' with bogus charge calls
I was born decades after the Great Depression, so I never had the opportunity to meet Dr. James Naismith. I know that he wanted a game without contact but to make an honest attempt at that goal, players on defense should not be allowed to slide in front of players on offense whose feet are at most o...
Russell Westbrook — flaws and all — was crucial in the Clippers’ Game 1 victory
For those who may be too young to remember Russell Westbrook’s best work, show them from the 1:08 mark in the fourth quarter of the Los Angeles Clippers 115-110, 2023 Game 1 playoff victory against the Phoenix Suns, to when the clock stops at 10.1 seconds....
Finding the NBA playoff X factors
The NBA playoffs are where superstars can add to — or subtract from — their legacies. They may come up clutch, or absolutely choke under the spotlight. The same goes for coaches. But there are always subplots around certain youngsters, role players, and unknowns who can make a name for themselves. T...
Here's which NBA playoff teams will boom or bust
NBA fans are preparing for one of the most equitable and competitive playoffs in recent memory. The lack of an active dynasty or superteam has the door open for nearly any team to make a Finals run. We’ve highlighted five teams headed toward playoff glory and five teams destined for despair. We cons...
The Sports Emmys are lacking, so Deadspin is here to pick up the slack
A problem with the Sports Emmys is there simply aren’t enough categories for individuals. Most awards are for shows, segments, reports, documentaries, etc. Only a handful acknowledge the on-air personalities, so those who care about bringing home some hardware are in for an uphill battle....
The Lakers need to get their stuff together if they wanna advance any further
Once again the Los Angeles Lakers found themselves in a game that they desperately needed to win, clutching victory with one hand hoping that the opposing team would fall off of the cliff first. That is certainly a path to a 108-102 overtime victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves who were missin...
Don’t be so quick to count out the Western Conference's top-seeded teams
A large swath of NBA media is out on the top seeds in the Western Conference — and it makes sense, because, for the first time since the 1996-97 season, the East is far and away superior....
Redefining what it means to be a unicorn
“Unicorn” is up there with “new normal” and “positionless basketball” as far as terms I would love to see removed from my brain. Any big man with guard skills is dubbed a unicorn, and we’re led to believe the NBA is a mythical universe populated by elves, dragons, and wizards. Well, technically the ...
If the NBA had a Dunk of the Year award, Ja Morant would be the winner
As we enter the final weekend of the NBA season, there are only a few regular season awards yet to be wrapped up. The most notable is the MVP race, but you’re delusional if you think I’m going to write about that. What I’m here to talk about today is the Dunk of the Year. It’s not an official award ...
Name a worse duo than Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving
I’ll just start with the question posed in the headline: Name a worse mashup of duos than Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving. For starters, Dennis Rodman and Jean-Claude van Damme in Double Team come to mind. Maybe, but at least they were so bad, so it’s funny. Bleach and vinegar create potentially lethal...
Can we just skip the Eastern Conference play-in tournament this year?
As the NBA regular season nears its end, teams continue to jockey for playoff and play-in tournament positions producing some wild races heading toward the finish line. The race in the West is setting up for a photo finish over the last few days, with both playoff and play-in implications on the lin...
LeBron leading Lakers' late playoff surge — with a first-round exit likely
The Los Angeles Lakers are riding high late in the season as they attempt to sneak into the top six of the Western Conference avoiding the play-in tournament. After beating Utah Tuesday night, L.A. sits a half-game back of the fifth-place Golden State Warriors and tied with the Clippers (both 41-38)...
Did Jim Nantz waste his best goodbye on March Madness?
Sportscaster sentimentality is one of the weirdest aspects of the sports world. One of the storylines of Monday night’s men’s title game was Jim Nantz. The voice of March Madness since literally as long as I can remember delivered his final college basketball broadcast in his hometown of Houston, an...
The new-look Los Angeles Lakers are peaking at just the right time
What appeared to be a lost Los Angeles Lakers season six weeks ago has sprouted wings in the final home stretch before the postseason. After missing countless weeks mending injuries in 2023, Anthony Davis and LeBron James returned to a lineup terraformed on the go....
The best games of the final week of the 2022-23 NBA regular-season Schedule
It’s the final week of the NBA regular season. Usually I would advise sports fans to get one last glimpse at a young team like the Orlando Magic before their season comes to an end. This season, my viewing recommendation is to wait until next season to watch the youngsters. They likely will have imp...
IDIOT OF THE MONTH: A March to the bottom
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! Take a gander at these dunces and be reminded that a future in which artificial intelligence destroys all biological life on Earth might not be so bad after all....
The best and worst TV broadcasts in MLB: Your guide to watching other baseball
As hard as MLB tries, baseball remains pretty parochial. That’s mostly due to the daily nature of it. If you’re a fan of a team, you basically spend every day from the beginning of April to the end of September watching your team and then going to bed, or maybe cramming in some sort of worthless soc...
With NFL players being allowed to wear 0, here are my favorite athletes to don the number
Look at the NFL trying to be looser as an organization. First, it relaxed restrictions on player numbers in 2021, and the league has decided that in 2023 a forbidden number will be allowed. Certain players will be allowed to wear the No. 0....
Charles Barkley hates the playa and the game, but he should look in the mirror
Every Cinderella story needs a bitter, jaded, elderly hater. Charles Barkley is college basketball’s evil stepmother analog. One of the most maddening staples of every March Madness is TNT loaning out Charles Barkley for CBS’ NCAA Tournament studio show coverage where he dissects college hoops with ...