rant Page 76 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
It's been 20 years since The Last Shot, Darcy Frey's stone classic on Coney Island hoops, was published. In a very nice piece, Amos Barshad catches up with Frey and the book's surviving principals, exploring not only the reporting process but the book's continuing effects on their lives. [Grantland]...
Qatari Government: Qatari Migrant Workers Dying In Droves
It's getting harder and harder to deny that Qatari migrant workers are dying at an alarming rate. One report, published by ITUC in March, estimated that World Cup construction will eventually kill more people than 9/11. (That report didn't sit well with Qatar's Supreme Committee of Delivery & Legacy...
Kevin Durant Couldn't Bear To Watch Russell Westbrook's Free Throws
[With six second left to play and the Thunder down by two, Russell Westbrook stepped to the line to shoot three free throws. Kevin Durant just couldn't watch. Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty.]...
Every Shot Kevin Durant Has Taken In His Career, In One Awesome Chart
"Every shot Kevin Durant has taken in the NBA" is the kind of thing that belongs in a museum, in some fashion. Kirk Goldsberry at Grantland made a chart of exactly that, and shoved it into his piece on the evolution of KD today. It's great. I can't stop staring at it. I want it on my wall. I want it...
Holy Shit, Durant And Westbrook
KD and Russ are the best and we love them and they're very fun to watch, sure. But this is preposterous. This is obscene. From Elias Sports: ...
Kevin Durant Cries While Praising Each One Of His Teammates
Kevin Durant won the NBA MVP award yesterday, and his acceptance speech was very long and full of tears. The speech was actually pretty sweet, especially when Durant addressed each of his present teammates individually, praising them as he choked back tears....
Down With Runway Food
I was watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown recently, and he was in Vegas at a fancy José Andrés restaurant-within-a-restaurant that had roughly two and a half seats and likely charged hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for a single meal. Bourdain was presented with an "egg" that wa...
Kool Keith Gets Back Into Playoff Form With "Durant & Westbrook"
I would accuse Kool Keith of shamelessly pandering for sports-blog love by naming his new song "Durant & Westbrook" (off the upcoming Demolition Crash), but if by this point you haven't realized just how few fucks Hip Hop's King of Weird gives about the mainstream, then you haven't been paying atten...
The Kevin Durant Backlash Has Begun, And It's Stupid
This is the cover of a section in today's Oklahoman, a newspaper which just took a chainsaw to the idea that smaller cities are more loyal and forgiving than the big ones. Shots fired, as they say....
Facebook Is Dead
I don't use Facebook much anymore, because anyone with a brain knows that Facebook is terrible. Apart from the long-standing complaints about privacy and insufferable people posting pictures of their own feet from a fucking beach, it's really only useful as a one-time thing. You make your account....
New Footage Shows The Based God's Curse On Kevin Durant Is Real
I don't know what kind of hidden frequencies or imperceptible light waves this Vine can pick up on, but we now have the best evidence yet for why Kevin "The Servant" Durant's shot wasn't hitting like it usually does last night....
18 Things <em>Rolling Stone</em> Couldn't Fit Into Its Bill Simmons Profile
I went to a Clippers game with Bill Simmons, heard him explain why other players don't like Blake Griffin, and joined him in making fun of a pre-shitstorm Donald Sterling, who sat, inert, across the court from us. ("Maybe it's like a Weekend at Bernie's kind of thing.") I ate sushi with Bill in L.A....
Cool Charts: Where The NBA's Best Scorers Are Getting Their Shots
Last Friday on Grantland, Kirk Goldsberry released a great series of charts breaking down the top NBA scorers and shooters from various spots on the floor. The graphics—interactives, thanks to Bostonography's Andy Woodruff—are revealing as always, especially Dirk Nowitzki's:...
Tony Allen Is The Defensive Stopper You Can Root For
There's a certain stigma that often hounds players who are labeled as defensive stoppers in the NBA, a belief that no small part of their success is derived from the fact that they are simply willing to play like assholes. This was true of Bruce Bowen, who was never all that feisty but wasn't shy a...
Durant, Perkins Heroics Force Overtime In Oklahoma City
This play, and everything about it, is absolutely nuts....
Russell Westbrook And Kevin Durant Are Awesome
This is a beautiful thing. In the first quarter of Grizzlies-Thunder, Russell Westbrook grabbed a rebound and, in the same motion, effortlessly flicked a pass three-quarters of the court that just so happened to land right in front of a streaking Kevin Durant for a fast break dunk that had no busin...
The Durant-LeBron Arms Race: Two Of The Best Seasons Of All Time
When we last took a look in February, LeBron James and Kevin Durant were both having monster seasons, with unprecedented combinations of offensive volume (usage percent) and efficiency (true shooting percent). There was still a lot of basektball left to play, but at the time we wrote that "if these ...
I'm Jonah Keri, World Authority On The Expos. Any Questions For Me?
Jonah Keri, staff writer for Grantland and author of Up, Up, & Away, will be hanging out in the comments below for the next hour or so, ready to take your questions on the Montreal Expos, bagels, and whatever else comes to mind. Have at it....
Andy Murray's Mom Loves Trolling Yoko Ono
Via Grantland, a delightful tale of a tennis superstar's mother's sardonic quest for enlightenment. War is over if you want it, but Twitter beef is forever....
Report: Qatar's World Cup Expected To Take More Lives Than 9/11
"Qatar is a country without a conscience," begins the International Trade Union Confederation's recent report on the working and living conditions of the 1.4 million migrant workers living in Qatar, many of whom are there to build stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup. After reading thr...