rant Page 40 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Austin Reaves is confused
Lakers rookie Austin Reaves is making professional basketball look relatable — by being visibly very confused about whatever scheme LeBron James was attempting to communicate to him during last night’s game against the Brooklyn Nets....

The last time these teams won...
After a thrilling weekend of walk-off field goals, two-minute drill exhibitions, and not leaving your couch for seven hours at a time, the field has narrowed down to the final four teams as we head into conference championship Sunday. We’ve got somewhat of an unexpected lineup here, with the excepti...

Shaq punching Kyrie Irving would be like a grizzly bear mauling a weasel
Shaquille O’Neal is stirring up trouble again with his comments stemming from a recent episode of The Big Podcast With Shaq. While discussing Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and his part-time player status, O’Neal casually stated that things would get physical if he and Irving were on the same team...

Curry’s first buzzer beater, Irving’s ‘breakthrough’ game, and more from a busy NBA Friday
Friday night was a “drink and you missed it” kind of night in the NBA, so if you didn’t catch (or forgot) the many highlights because you went out to dinner, the bar, a buddy’s place, or somewhere else other than in front of your TV watching games, allow me to fill you in while you scroll through yo...

Joel Embiid is the MVP in our hearts and on the charts
There was nothing lost in Joel Embiid’s 50 points in 27 minutes against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night because it’s impossible to talk about the 76ers without mentioning you know who. Every conversation about Philly starts and stops with, “Imagine if Ben Simmons…” Imagine if they traded him he...

Who’s the best baller on the planet?
Unlike the GOAT debate in the NBA, the best player in the world conversation can change by the hour, seemingly....

If Kyrie Irving is getting on your nerves, a Cavs fan feels your pain
For those frustrated with Kyrie Irving’s vaccine stance, and misguided logic behind his stance, on COVID vaccinations, take solace in the fact that he will not enjoy a moment of peace all season from the fans. For now, Irving can only play in road games because of New York City’s COVID vaccine manda...

Difficult Super Bowl Trivia: Part 1
It’s the 20th anniversary of the Tuck Rule Game, or the Snow Game, depending on whether or not you’re from New England. That was the night in Foxboro that the Patriots got the benefit of a controversial call on what appeared to be a Tom Brady fumble, tied and won the game on Adam Vinatieri field goa...

A rough stretch for the Bulls doesn’t look like it’s going to get better soon
The clock has struck midnight and the Chicago Bulls 2021-22 Cinderella season has turned into a pumpkin at the halfway point. It started with their big Wednesday night matchup last week against the Brooklyn Nets who, at the time, had all three of their stars on the court. After a competitive first h...

Leave Bruce Brown alone — it was a foul, not a flop, that injured Kevin Durant’s knee
It has been an up-and-down, one-step-forward one-step-back kind of a season for the Brooklyn Nets. Their next 4-6 weeks might go down, back, and off to the side as resident MVP candidate Kevin Durant will be sidelined for that span. The Nets today announced the results of an MRI, which showed that D...

There would be a beautiful symmetry to Newcastle getting relegated
It’s unusually harsh on Newcastle supporters, who are one of the more tortured fanbases in any sport you can find. Imagine if Pirates owner Bob Nutting owned a soccer club, that’s what Newcastle fans just went through. Mike Ashley was not only a raging asshole, but incredibly cheap when it came to t...

Can’t spell ‘razzle dazzle’ without grabbing an L
Perhaps LaMelo Ball wanted to get some of the ink that his brother Lonzo has been? The younger Ball made one of the plays of the year on Friday night, deflecting a pass and then racing up the court, where instead of going for an easy layup or throwing down a dunk, he weaved the ball between his legs...

Bo Jackson Curse? The Bengals aren’t cursed, they’re just inept
In my perusal of Wild-Card Weekend storylines to write about, I found the curse of Bo Jackson particularly interesting. If you’ve never heard of Bo Jackson then my god are you young, but if you’ve never heard of the Bo Jackson Curse then, like me, you’re new to this borderline contrived curse....

Blame Dr. LeBronenstein for creating this monster
It’s easy to just want to blame Russell Westbrook....

Without Paul George, a Kawhi Leonard return means nothing this year
After advancing to the Western Conference Finals for the first time last season, this year has been an up and down struggle for the Clippers with key players in and out of the lineup. Kawhi Leonard hasn’t played a game yet this season after tearing his ACL in the second round of the playoffs against...

A Cowboys-49ers playoff game means so much more than just another wild-card game
January 10, 1982, is the day it all started. Most longtime Niners and Cowboys fans will point to this day as the start of a rivalry that lasted the better part of two decades. The 1981 NFC championship game at Candlestick Park between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys was the beginning of a...

Can Russell Westbrook even fix this?
It’s not breaking news that things are not going well for Russell Westbrook with the Lakers, but things reached a particularly embarrassing point on Wednesday night as the Sacramento Kings’ game ops trolled the former MVP with an “Ice Cold Player Of The Game” scoreboard graphic, on a night when the ...

This is what happens when you get the aristocracy’s attention
A good portion of fans, most I would say, fail to recognize just how long the NBA season is. Goes for the NHL and MLB ones, too. It’s always hard to explain to a lot of them that there are nights in the middle, or maybe on the second of a back-to-back or the last of a four games in six nights, when ...

In a league of inconsistent-to-bad teams, Memphis is neither
There are currently nine NBA teams hovering around .500 and in or tied for the playoffs/play-in tourney. If that seems like an abnormally high number, that’s because it is, and the Mavs barely missed out on this list because they’re technically four games above .500....
