rnc Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NCAA prospects who could turn into NBA All-Stars
As March Madness kicks off in a few days, the next class of NBA regulars will play in their final college games before transitioning into pre-draft prep, doing everything they can to hear their name called higher on June 23. Most of the top prospects for this summer’s draft will display their talent...

Chris Finch is the NBA’s Coach of the Year
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ surge up the NBA standings has been a warm fire during another frigid winter. For the past decade, this has been an utterly moribund franchise. The time was nearing for Karl-Anthony Towns to begin asking for an escape hatch as his super-max contract approached its expirat...

Klay’s offensive explosion against the Bucks was great, but he wanted more
Klay Thompson broke out of his shooting slump in a big way Saturday night in Golden State’s 122-109 win over Milwaukee. Thompson dropped 38 points on the Bucks with six rebounds and five assists, connecting on eight three-pointers in the process....

Goodbye and good riddance to Will Wade
It took way too long to oust Will Wade from his place atop LSU men’s basketball, but the deserved guillotine finally made its swift chop on Saturday afternoon, a major moment in the 4-year-plus NCAA investigation into wrongdoing surrounding his time in Baton Rouge. Wade was fired with cause, meaning...

Anyone banking on a Milwaukee Bucks championship repeat is in for a rude awakening
The Milwaukee Bucks took one on the chin Saturday night in prime time against the Golden State Warriors, falling in defeat 122-109. What’s even more concerning than the loss is that Warriors superstar Stephen Curry scored just eight points. Curry was on the floor for a total of 35 minutes. That stat...

Portland’s six-game losing streak is worse than you think
The Portland Trailblazers are not the worst team in the NBA. They’re far from it actually. However, their past six games would indicate otherwise. They’re tanking like there’s no tomorrow. Since their Feb. 24 matchup at home against the Golden State Warriors, the Trail Blazers have lost every game t...

What’s the future for Cuonzo Martin?
Throughout the years of covering Cuonzo Martin with my boots on the ground in Columbia, Missouri, musing to every whim of Mizzou athletics as the hometown daily newspaper’s sole beat reporter, I’ve learned a few things about the 50-year-old East St. Louis, Illinois native along the way. ...

Joel Embiid is deserving of the MVP, but the award should go to Nikola Jokić
Nikola Jokić and Joel Embiid showed on Monday night why they are the two front runners for MVP in the NBA. Embiid scored 43 points and tallied 14 rebounds and three blocks while leading the Philadelphia 76ers to an important 121-106 victory over the Chicago Bulls that vaulted them past the Milwaukee...

The Western Conference had better hope that Zion returning to New Orleans is another false alarm
A lot happened this past weekend. So much that Duke fans cried and Duke haters laughed at the same time for about five minutes following Duke’s 94-81 loss in Mike Krzyzewski’s last game at Cameron Indoor Stadium, before LeBron James got to work scoring 56 points to help get the Los Angeles Lakers’ t...

Spencer Dinwiddie unleashes newfound energy in Dallas
That saying about a change of scenery seems to have hit home for Dallas Mavericks guard Spencer Dinwiddie. Since Dinwiddie was traded to the Mavs last month, he’s looked like a new man and seems to fit in with this roster....

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....

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 ...

Jaylen Brown injury speaks to the fragility of Boston’s makeup
I almost wrote about the Celtics on Tuesday because I heard about these projections that had them with heavy title odds, but when I went to FiveThirtyEight to try to find them, it felt like I was trying to decipher binary code. So I held off to wait to see if anything came of the research I loosely ...

The best NCAA Women’s Tournament teams at each seed
For the first time this year, the NCAA Women’s Tournament will expand to 68 teams, matching the men’s showcase, which expanded to that number of teams chasing a national championship in 2011. That’s more chances for a longshot to make a run and take down the sport’s elite....

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

Nate McMillan’s tenure with the Hawks is downright Thibs-ian
The Hawks are lucky the Knicks are so disappointing or Stephen A. Smith would be melting down about them instead. The team that ended the Ben Simmons era in Philly, banished Julius Randle to a place from which he has yet to return, and competed with eventual NBA championship Milwaukee in the Eastern...

Zion might want to leave the Pelicans, but he really shouldn’t
Zion Williamson’s absence from the New Orleans Pelicans has of late led to tons of speculation about his future. Former teammate JJ Redick made the rounds on ESPN shows to talk about Zion’s lack of professionalism, even saying on First Take that he had even addressed it with Zion in front of the tea...

The best NCAA March Madness teams by seed
The NCAA Tournament has become one of the most unpredictable, edge-of-your-seat sporting events of the year due to its knockout nature. It’s a clash of college basketball styles coming together as the calendar turns from winter to spring, pitting teams that usually never see each other on the same c...

Keep an eye on the Heat, NBA fans
Jimmy Butler has missed 19 games, Kyle Lowry has missed 15, and Bam Adebayo has missed 25. Yet, as the NBA regular season resumes tonight after the All-Star Break, the Miami Heat are in first place in the Eastern Conference. The Heat have the same winning percentage as the second-place Chicago Bulls...

Mayor Eric Adams just threw a lob to the Nets
Kyrie Irving took a gamble on his health when he began his crusade against New York City’s vaccine mandate. The mandate states that residents cannot enter indoor spaces, such as gyms, if they have not received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson. His stance a...