rant Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Mariners fire bench coach Brant Brown
The Seattle Mariners, who lead the American League West Division, fired bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown before Friday's home game against the Los Angeles Angels.,The team said its director of hitting strategy Jarret DeHart and its assistant hitting coach Tommy Joseph would "continu...

OKC's Sam Presti is an overrated draft savant
Sam Presti is the only NBA executive ever to draft three future MVPs and he did it in three consecutive drafts. It’s a maniacal stroke of luck and an exercise of risk/reward, chance and foresight. By doing so, Presti at the time guaranteed short-term success for the soon-to-be relocated Seattle Soni...

Who is the best point guard in the NBA?
What is a point guard in today’s NBA? The role and term has evolved so much from the 1990s when the position was defined by midrange scoring, playmaking and limited athleticism. Today’s concept of a point guard runs the whole gamut, across all five positions, where a center in Denver is the best pas...

The best March Madness performances by players on mid-majors
Every year in the March Madness tournament, some school you have never heard of from the middle of nowhere qualifies. They almost are never expected to win, but sometimes, they have one ringer who can carry them very far. Here are some of the best players from mid-major colleges that have dazzled th...

15 most memorable men's March Madness moments since 2000
With March Madness approaching, we are entering the best time of year to be a college basketball fan. To usher in a new year of upsets, stellar performances and champions, here are 15 moments from 2000 to now that are some of the most memorable moments in March Madness history. ...

Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are proof that having a <i>Napoleon</i> complex isn’t all bad
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees....

Zion Williamson thinks he’s slick, but we know he won’t ever be in the Dunk Contest
Each year following NBA All-Star weekend, we discuss the slam dunk contest for at least two to three weeks afterward. Whether it’s good, bad or somewhere in the middle, the conversation surrounding it blazes on for some time. Now we get Zion Williamson fanning the flames dunk contest banter, with hi...

15 NBA players we wish competed in the Slam Dunk Contest
The NBA Slam Dunk Contest is on life support. The G-League’s Mac McClung has won the contest for a second year in a row. Despite Boston’s Jaylen Brown attempting to bring stars back to the iconic event, his dunks were relatively unimpressive. ...

The latest scapegoat for Ben Simmons’ back issues? His agent
Remember when NBA Twitter, now NBA X, spent an entire season obsessing over where Ben Simmons would be traded? It ended up being Brooklyn, and that ended up being the last time he was relevant to professional basketball. The latest update is there is no update, just Simmons’ agent, Bernie Lee, falli...

Vince McMahon sells TKO shares, nets $400 million
Vince McMahon made more than $400 million yesterday after selling over five million of his shares in TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of WWE, according to documents provided to the New York Post by the Securities and Exchange Commission. ...

Turns out America loves the Denver Nuggets
Most of the state of Colorado can’t watch the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets. However, the rest of America is enjoying the show. NBA insider/analyst Ethan Strauss dove into some viewership data for a recent post on his substack....

Have the Premier League’s financial rules kept Newcastle from being Newcastle?
While the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules might have lost a shade or two off their teeth with the news today that Everton have had their 10-point penalty reduced to six on appeal (though they have another charge to dodge), that doesn’t mean they’re not having an effect. The desolate...

Vince Carter spilled the beans on a $1 million dunk contest
Many of the festivities were up for discussion following the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, with none more talked about than the slam dunk contest. Former dunk champion and current TNT NBA analyst, Vince Carter, appeared on “Run it Back” on Fanduel TV and confirmed a legendary rumor. Carter said he was app...

The NBA’s UFC card was loaded Friday night
In a surprise act for the NBA in February, there was some life in a couple of regular season games Friday. First, the Miami Heat played a little too rough with Zion Williamson, and it led to four ejections. Then later, a garbage time layup in the Charlotte Hornets-Golden State Warriors game prompted...

Here's why Jayson Tatum has struggled to distinguish himself in the MVP mosaic
Since entering the league, Jayson Tatum has been the leading active stakeholder in carrying Kobe Bryant’s influence into a new decade. In nature, the Green Mamba is a less aggressive, nontoxic breed, compared to the eponymous viper Kobe built his persona around, which is an apt description for the d...

Billionaire octogenarian apparently not embarrased to ask for $1B in taxpayer money
Another day, another billionaire casually asking the taxpayers of his city for a billion dollars so he can get even more money than he already has. ...

5 increasingly unhinged solutions to the NBA All-Star Game
As the NBA has observed its golden era of efficiency proliferate from more streamlined offenses to load management run amok, elements of the league have fallen by the wayside. Marquee hoopers play fewer minutes, fewer games and now they barely expend energy or cross halfcourt during All-Star Weekend...

Sick, Sad World of Sports: Who started off 2024 on the wrong foot
There was no shortage of allegedly heinous behavior to start the new year, with Chicago Bulls fans booing a widow, Vince McMahon resigning in disgrace (again) and various big-name athletes unaware of the age of consent. ...

As the Thunder return to contention, let's not forget the Supersonics
The Oklahoma City Thunder have executed one of the shortest rebuilding periods in NBA history. Since the breakup of the Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook pairing, leading into the current Thunder 2.0, only lasted three seasons of extreme tanking. Those losing efforts netted them the sixth pick in the ...

The Knicks are back after 2 decades of James Dolan terror and ineptitude
The New York Knicks won the NBA trade deadline, fleecing the Detroit Pistons for Bojan Bogdanović and Alec Burks. They added the backup playmaker and off-the-bench scoring they were missing to reach championship contention. Fully healthy, and despite their recent injury-induced hiccup, the Knicks ca...