rant Page 23 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The best games on the NBA schedule the week of Feb. 6 — the NFL season is over, get used to it
Sunday is the season finale for NFL 2022. All that is left until post-Labor Day is free-agent signings, trades, the NFL Draft, and position battles in practice. Sure some of you are looking forward to the speculation, but that can’t possibly compare to seven hours of actual game action. For those of...

Kyrie Irving wanted out of Brooklyn, and he got his wish
Kyrie Irving got his wish, and the Dallas Mavericks became a much better offensive basketball team. The Athletic’s Shams Charania is reporting that the Brooklyn Nets are trading Irving to the Mavericks for Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, a first-round pick, and a handful of second-rounders....

I would rather light my franchise on fire than validate Kyrie Irving
Eventually, some time way down the road, after amassing hundreds of millions of dollars, Kyrie Irving is going to get his. By that point though, it’ll be way too late in life to teach him that he’s ever done anything wrong. When the news broke that Irving demanded a trade from the Brooklyn Nets on F...

Kyrie Irving has his finger on the Brooklyn Nets’ dead man’s switch
A dull day with the Brooklyn Nets is merely the calm before a Kyrie Irving storm. On Friday afternoon, the Nets star point guard added another chapter to his tumultuous tenure in Brooklyn by placing his finger on a metaphorical dead man’s switch by outright requesting a trade from the Nets. ...

Kyrie Irving tells Nets to trade him now or he leaves as a free agent
Brooklyn Nets heat magnet and resident conspiracy theorist Kyrie Irving wants the team to deal him elsewhere prior to the NBA trade deadline or he’ll leave as a free agent, as reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania....

The NBA regular season would be more palatable with stars on shitty teams
It’s no secret that this current iteration of the NBA has struggled to make its regular season meaningful. Star players miss games night to night, and the matchups we anticipate because they could be a preview of the postseason all of the sudden are rendered moot. Only two things really move the NBA...

When it comes to load management, Steph Curry says it's not the players who want it
The gentrifiers of Brooklyn caught a raw deal on Monday night. The Los Angeles Lakers are in New York on a back-to-back, meaning that LeBron James and Anthony Davis were only going to play one game. People who purchased tickets for the Brooklyn Nets game received the short end of the load management...

Player and team activism may be lost on you, but you’re not everyone
A week ago tonight I sat here and wrote about why I didn’t want to touch on the Memphis Grizzlies getting into a verbal altercation with Shannon Sharpe during a game against the Los Angeles Lakers. The point of that article was to illustrate why it’s important to stay current on issues that actually...

A rising tide lift all boats and it's time we threw Jason Whitlock’s ilk overboard
Choosing between women’s and men’s sports is a false choice. If you’re a certain blogger for Glenn Beck’s conservative Blaze media, revisionist history can be a comfort zone that vilifies feminism in sports as your woke sports boogeyman, but makes you look like a headass instead. Jason Whitlock’s re...

We've got 2 words for ya: Sixers-Nets
We need a Philadelphia 76ers vs. Brooklyn Nets series in the postseason. For the trolling, if not the talent. These teams squared off Wednesday night with only Philly at full strength since Kevin Durant is still sidelined for Brooklyn. Although he wasn’t on the court, Durant managed to make his pres...

Who wants to tell Bob Myers that nobody cares?
There’s nothing more inside sports than talking shop about general managers and team presidents. Obviously, their job is vital to the success of the organization. It’s just, no one really needs to know more than that. Golden State Warriors GM Bob Myers has been leaking his contract negotiations to t...

NBA All-Star Draft a change for the better
For sports fans who believe that NBA basketball has been “too playground” since Larry Bird retired in 1992, this year’s All-Star game is doing the opposite of reaching out to those fans....

Best games on the NBA schedule this week: The West is rising
Don’t let anyone tell you the NBA schedule during the regular season is a poor entertainment product. Of course, a single game does not impact a team’s overall record the same way that it does an NFL team. In the NBA teams play multiple games per week. That is not changing anytime soon, especially w...

Shannon Sharpe apologizes for tirade against Grizzlies
Shannon Sharpe’s sideline tirade directed toward the Memphis Grizzlies turned the retired NFL tight end and Undisputed co-host into a trending figure during Friday night’s NBA on ESPN matchup. Sharpe’s feud with the Grizzlies just before halftime distracted from what was an otherwise entertaining ga...

Shannon Sharpe, Memphis Grizzlies nearly scuffle at halftime: 'They didn't want this smoke'
The Memphis Grizzlies have always exuded extreme black Air Force energy. It’s one thing for their trash talk to agitate LeBron. However, their penchant for trash talk nearly approached Malice at the Palace levels on Friday night before halftime of a Friday night ESPN matchup against the Los Angeles ...

’90s rules, agency wars, and other ideas for an NBA midseason tournament
I know I’m not the only one rolling my eyes at the NBA trying to come up with a midseason tournament format worthy of getting players to compete at the highest level. This is going to be like summer camp for teams once they’re eliminated, and if I was in the league, I’d think about throwing a contes...

Raise your hand if you want a Denver Nuggets-Memphis Grizzlies Western Conference Finals
If you directly asked the NBA powers how they would feel about a Memphis Grizzlies-Denver Nuggets matchup in the Western Conference Finals, I think they’d offer a “We’d love that.” However, if you asked the same people the same question in an anonymous poll, I’m pretty sure the responses would be so...

The case for trading LeBron James for Evan Mobley
I’ve seen kiddie pools deeper than the unseasoned jambalaya VP Rob Pelinka has assembled for the Lakers around LeBron James. As a consequence, James’ enduring existence on a sub-.500 borderline playoff squad has created a rift where trade speculation festers and boils. During a recent appearance on ...

The best NBA games to watch this week
Of course, a single game does not impact a team’s overall record the same way that it does an NFL team. In the NBA, teams play multiple games per week. That is not changing anytime soon, especially with the Golden State Warriors needing to host as many events as possible in their palatial $1.4 billi...

Nic Claxton is a major reason why the Brooklyn Nets have played so well lately
Thursday night’s playoff rematch between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets will be like many big-time NBA regular-season matchups — incomplete....