ray Page 47 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Don’t expect Gregg Popovich to go the Coach K retirement ceremony route
Going out to dinner with Gregg Popovich is up there with golfing with Charles Barkley, gambling with Michael Jordan, watching football with John Madden, and talking shit with Gary Payton on the list of activities with sports figures that sound like fun. As awesome as good food and better wine with C...

The fastest NFL Combine ever created a new class of sonic boom or bust prospects
The NFL’s Underwear Olympics has always had a tangential connection to actual football. Bench press reps are the equivalent of Strong Man competitions, but until linemen are pulling trucks, they don’t move the needle. Besides, the best combine bench press numbers typically are posted by the lineman ...

A loss to the Lakers is further proof that the Warriors have no chance in the playoffs without Draymond Green
Jan. 9 was the last time Draymond Green played for the Golden State Warriors this season. He had missed the previous two games, and took the court that day for a total of seven seconds just so he could be alongside Klay Thompson who played in his first game since the 2019 NBA Finals....

Legendary coaches hand picking their successors is a great idea, until it isn’t
Tonight will mark the final time Mike Krzyzewski coaches a basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium after 42 seasons as Duke’s head coach. It’s a game against archrival North Carolina, with Hubert Davis patrolling the other sideline in his first season guiding the Tar Heels after the retirement of ...

Bulls get 'revenge' on Grayson Allen, but lose fourth straight
Whether it was on purpose or, as Derrick Jones Jr. insists, by accident, the Bulls have finally (sort of) gotten their payback on Grayson Allen. In a late January matchup between the Bucks and the Bulls, Allen had a flagrant 2 foul that put Bulls point guard Alex Caruso out of commission for months ...

Kliff Kingsbury has never accomplished anything
The Arizona Cardinals are a team on the verge of ruin, draped in Gucci. Their situation appears ideal from the outside looking in, but underneath the aesthetic of an exhilarating No. 1 overall pick and a stacked offense is a team who took a dirt nap after their 10-2 start. Going 1-5 in a crucial por...

The Avs are really going to trust this to Mr. Darcy?
Once again, the Colorado Avalanche are the Showtime of the NHL. They were last year, though last season being what it was it doesn’t really count for evaluation/analytic purposes. But reverting back to an actual NHL schedule (or something closely resembling one) hasn’t slowed the Avs much. They pick...

Making a case for the Utah Jazz
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. This essay was going to make a case for why the Utah Jazz could finally win a championship this season. But when it was all written out, the facts just didn’t line up. Can the Utah Jazz do it? Can they win it all? It seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Especially with the ...

Memphis Grizzlies are the NBA’s March Madness Contenders
A self-made superstar has propelled the Memphis Grizzlies’ upward trajectory....

Ovechkin ‘calls for peace’ but fails to denounce Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
Alexander Ovechkin finally addressed the crisis in Ukraine, saying some words in a press conference in Philadelphia that sounded nice but were ultimately meaningless....

Draymond Green is the Pat McAfees of Charles Barkleys
While he rehabs a disc injury, Draymond Green is a perpetual motion, content-churning machine. He’s been ubiquitous this season, from mounting a legit case for Defensive Player of the Year to the airwaves during All-Star Weekend to his burgeoning podcast. In September, Green launched a podcast on Co...

Where will these quarterbacks go?
I can’t remember an offseason that was filled with so much uncertainty for so many of the game’s elite signal-callers. It’s not just the big names, too. Several mid-tier starters and quarterbacks with Super Bowl experience are on the trade block, as well. With many of these teams looking to replace ...

The path to an NBA championship is increasingly volatile
Neil Young gets credit for the line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” but Kurt Cobain made it infamous. That dichotomy stuck with me, and it’s impossible not to see it in sports....

Draymond Green’s importance to another Golden State run is even more apparent when he’s not on the court
Draymond Green hasn’t been on the court for the Golden State Warriors since their Jan. 5 loss (aside from the opening tip when Klay Thompson returned) to the Dallas Mavericks. In Green’s absence, the Warriors are 13-8, but in watching the team, it’s clear to see just how important Draymond is to the...

Kyler Murray and the Cardinals could be headed for a long contract dispute following latest reports about his leadership and finger-pointing
Over the first two months of the NFL season, it looked like Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals would have the inside track to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. We know that didn’t come to fruition, and the second half of the year was pretty much a disaster for the Cardinals, based on how stro...

Aaron Donald’s reign of terror places him in pantheon of generational defensive players
Offensive highlights litter every catalog of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history, and even fewer of those great plays involve lumbering defensive linemen. A two-yard loss isn’t as exciting as a 25-yard scoring throw or a running back trampling an entire defense. But when the story of Super Bowl...

NFL award winners haven't been Super in the big game
Super Bowl LVI will feature four NFL Honors Awards winners: Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase (OROY) and Joe Burrow (CPOY) as well as the Rams’ Cooper Kupp (OPOY). Rams’ offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth also won the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, but that’s not important for the context of this pie...

James Wiseman deserves to be more than Kevon Looney with an upside
There’s still time for James Wiseman to turn into the player the Warriors thought he would be. This is his second season, he’s only 20 years old, and a meniscus tear isn’t microfracture surgery. He participated in contact drills Tuesday for the first time since the tear last season, according to ESP...

A Matt Stafford victory is a win for all mid-career professionals
During the summer of 2006, I was a fledgling student journalist baking under the blistering sun at a preseason practice at UGA, capturing B-Roll of a fellow pimply-faced true freshman from Texas. The quarterback phenom was about to be the talk of the SEC. Matthew Stafford’s singular talent created r...

Dan Snyder knows no shame
Under Dan Snyder’s stewardship, the Washed Football Team has become a tired, dull reflection of the burgundy and gold of old. Each offseason is replete with a stream of allegations, controversies, and criminal investigations. Oh, and the team is rudderless....