san Page 139 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Even If The Warriors Win, Oakland Loses
This is the real NBA Finals, the one that transcends Larry O’Brien, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Doris Burke, Woj, Adam Silver, dynasties, the next Why-The-Lakers-Are-On-Fire tell-all, the works. This is Oakland’s last stand with the team it raised from a pup, its last healthy bite of an apple that ...

Lakers GM Rob Pelinka Apparently Made Up A Bizarre Story About Kobe Bryant And Heath Ledger
I know we already wrote about ESPN’s delightfully detailed account of the Lakers’ deep-seated institutional rot, but this phony story GM Rob Pelinka invented about Kobe Bryant and Heath Ledger is too good not to call specific attention to....

Whoo Buddy, The Lakers Sound Like A Real Mess
Call ‘em the Showtime Lakers again, not because their utter organizational collapse of this past season was fun to watch—though it was definitely fun to watch—but because they melted down with levels of violence and obscenity that belong on premium cable. Luke Walton is gone as coach, replaced with ...

Mike Yastrzemski Disappoints Wife While Trying To Get To Second Base
Yet another relative of a Hall of Famer was promoted to the majors this past weekend. Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski, got the call up to join the dysfunctional Giants on Saturday, where he made his debut against the Diamondbacks. Yastrzemski finally got the first hit of...

A Good And Smart Preview Of A Wide-Open 2019 WNBA Season
Hockey is almost over, and the NBA is basically done, so now all we have to look forward to over these impending hot summer months is a World Cup, the ability to blast Bad Girls out of our apartment windows, and some goddamn WNBA basketball. That last thing starts tonight, folks! Let’s get to the pr...

Raptors Defense Pushes Bucks To The Toilet's Edge In Game 5 Upset
The Milwaukee Bucks, the best team of the 2018–19 regular season and by far the best team through the first two rounds of the playoffs, find themselves in the deepest of caca following a 105–99 loss to the Toronto Raptors in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bucks will have to stave off e...

Rich Hill, On The Shift: "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Goddammit! Fuck!"
With two down in the bottom of the first inning of Wednesday night’s Dodgers-Rays game, Rays first baseman Ji-man Choi leaned over and bunted a first-pitch fastball from Dodgers starter Rich Hill up the third baseline for a single. This worked because the Dodgers had shifted their infield to the rig...

Quit Smashing Giannis Into The Damn Wall Already
For a top-seeded team that rampaged through the regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs at a nigh-historic level of dominance, the Milwaukee Bucks feature a dull-ass half-court offense. Often—dismally often—it’s just, well, this:...

The Blues Took The Sharks Off Life Support And Advanced To The Stanley Cup Final
Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals followed the exact same template as the last two games in this series, as the Blues got out to an early lead and kept it, eliminating the banged-up Sharks in front of an uncontainable home crowd whose force almost rivaled the storms outside. St. Louis earned t...

Counterpoint: A Little Scuffle Only Means The Sharks Are Ready To Shock The World
I have been a lifelong Sharks fan for at least two weeks, and if there’s anything my hours of fandom have taught me it’s this: Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky is wrong to underestimate the mighty Sharks....

Game 6 Just Got A Lot Tougher For The Sharks
The Sharks will not have Erik Karlsson or Tomas Hertl for Game 6 tonight, and Joe Pavelski is a game-time decision. By the low, low standards set by a disastrous Game 5, the news could be worse. Joe Pavelski could be definitely out instead of just possibly out and definitely hampered. Joonas Donskoi...

This Is The Most Entertaining The Lakers Have Been In Years
Now THIS is the kind of story fantasists are asking for, and there isn’t as much as a matchbook in sight. There is an attempt here by several people of power and influence to seize the Los Angeles Lakers, and though you may wish this kind of plot turn concerned a team relevant enough to actively hat...

Magic Johnson Visits <i>First Take</i>, Talks A Whole Bunch Of Shit About Lakers GM Rob Pelinka
Former Los Angeles Lakers president and current Twitter user Magic Johnson joined ESPN’s First Take this morning to talk about his embarrassing exit from the team, the sorry state of the franchise headed into a critical summer, and the confusing power structure within the organization. Johnson doesn...

Kawhi Leonard Is Doing Everything A Player Could Be Asked To Do
Kawhi Leonard is no longer the defensive marauder he once was, maybe because he’s been saddled with Jordanesque duties on the other side of the ball. The Raptors’ sludgy tar-pit offense leaves Leonard no possession to catch his breath. Almost every trip down the floor, he’s relied upon to create som...

Well, That Was A Disaster For The Sharks
The Sharks seem pretty, pretty boned after Sunday’s 5-0 loss to the Blues, which gives St. Louis a 3-2 series lead. And it’s not even the whole verge-of-elimination thing; San Jose has faced that before, and they’re still here. But if they’re to complete another series comeback, and win yet another ...

Santi Cazorla Completes His Resurrection By Earning A Spanish National Team Spot
The last time Santi Cazorla played for the Spanish national team, Donald Trump wasn’t President, Vine still existed, and Real Madrid only had one Champions League this decade. The date was November 14, 2015, and Cazorla had scored against England in a 2-0 friendly win. The wheels almost literally fe...

Padres' Ian Kinsler Appears To Celebrate Dinger By Yelling "Fuck All You" At The Home Crowd
Ian Kinsler hit a three-run dinger in the sixth inning Thursday night to put his Padres up a run, 4–3, over the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates. That’s good, dingers are cool, who among us doesn’t get pumped and jacked by a mighty dinger? Do you want to get pumped and jacked? Feast your eyes on this suc...

Is There Anything Fishy About The Sharks?
The San Jose Sharks have forged a reputation over the decades of always being invited to the party and always having to leave by 10:30, either because that’s when their ride is leaving or they have to relieve the babysitter or they have to work in the morning and need their eight hours because they ...

Don't Send Joe Thornton To The Old Folks Home Just Yet
On your typical playoff team that features a wizened old veteran looking for his first-ever championship, the old guy isn’t much more than a walking feel-good story, there to positively affect the locker room and take charge with the media. As the San Jose Sharks moved through the Western Conference...

The Blues Got Screwed By Yet Another Officiating Disaster
Images the NHL wants to linger after an hard-fought overtime game: the jubilation of the goalscorer; his teammates erupting on the bench and spilling over to celebrate on the ice; the disappointment and hard-earned exhaustion of the losers, skating off in disbelief....