season Page 44 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Not to worry Luka, it happens to the best of them
Sure he had to hear his eulogy while he was still living after Andrew Wiggins read him his last rites in Game 3, but Luka Dončić has nothing to be ashamed of. The Dallas Mavericks star led the NBA postseason in scoring, but his singular output was futile against a Golden State Warriors team that pla...
Get rid of position quotas from All-NBA teams already
If there was ever a reason to finally do away with the positional rankings for All-NBA teams, it’s Joel Embiid’s flagrant omission from First-Team All-NBA honors. The powers that be thought it appropriate to put the direct runner-up to MVP on the Second Team to adhere to a positional preference more...
This looks like Connor McDavid’s time
This could finally be it. The NHL is starving for its next superstar. Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby’s first-round exits with Washington and Pittsburgh left a void for a television-ratings hockey juggernaut....
The Dallas Mavericks turned into pumpkins
When I wrote the Dallas Mavericks were a mess earlier this season, it was right after they traded one terrible contract in Kristaps Porziņģis for two terrible contracts in Spencer Dwindiddle and Davis Bertans. My argument was not that the Mavs had made the wrong move in ditching the Latvian bum. Nor...
Roger Angell knew baseball was about people, not stats
Roger Angell loved baseball in its purest form. Throughout over half a century of covering the sport for ‘The New Yorker’, Angell saw the game dip, duck, dive, and dodge its way through rule changes, scandals, and fundamental changes, yet his love for America’s pastime never faded....
No more excuses: 2022 needs to be Tua time in Miami
Year Three will be a make-or-break year in Miami for Tua Tagovailoa. While the former Alabama QB has been decent for the Dolphins, he’s yet to lead them to the postseason. There’s absolutely no reason that shouldn’t change in 2022 with how the team has been restructured to focus more on the offensiv...
Thunder, Magic luck out in a top-heavy NBA draft
After three years of embarrassing tanking, GM Sam Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder have returned to relevance. They came into the NBA Lottery with the sixth-best odds at the top pick in the 2022 NBA Draft and ended up with the second pick in the draft. The Orlando Magic won the first pick and wi...
Tale of the tape: Battle of Alberta vs. Battle of Florida
The second round of the playoffs worked, in part, the way that the NHL dreamed up when it went to this postseason format of divisional brackets. You can question the wisdom of it happening in the second round, but we’re getting the Battle of Alberta and the Battle of Florida now....
It’s time for the yearly symposium on whether this is finally it for the Penguins
This is yet another distasteful side effect of the NHL’s salary cap. Fans and observers of a certain team, especially a successful one, have to start judging just how much sand is left in the hourglass. They have to weigh the age of the best players, salaries of those players, when contracts run out...
Those Game 7s were a dud, but that doesn’t dilute the outstanding performances from the second round that deserve recognition
That was quite an exhilarating second round of NBA Playoff action… until it wasn’t. ...
It’s all just so pointless
There was a baseball game on the Northside of Chicago last night. I didn’t watch it. I haven’t watched any of them. But Twitter tends to tell me if there’s anything that happens of note with the Cubs. I can’t say I’m not informed. I just don’t have to watch Marquee Network’s high school AV Club leve...
It’s going to be a long summer in Phoenix after a Game 7 no-show against Dallas
Wow. Freaking wow....
Who do Eastern Conference teams need to worry about in a post-LeBron playoff world?
Last week, the NBA presented and christened its Eastern Conference Finals Trophy after Larry Bird. It was a well-deserved honor for an old Hick from French Lick, who helped pave the NBA’s Gilded Age. However, King James should be the most revered monarch over the East. LeBron was the Eastern Confere...
The Saints have a chance to do something no NFL team has ever done
The New Orleans Saints are looking to do some damage next season. Will they overtake the Buccaneers for top dog in the NFC South? Probably not. Will they compete? Probably. They will be a competent team with the talent to win several games, and with the NFL schedule officially unveiled, some people ...
Milwaukee empathizing with last season’s Brooklyn Nets
It’s deja vu all over again for the Milwaukee Bucks — their conference semifinals are looking eerily similar to last year’s series against the Brooklyn Nets. To refresh your memory, they were saved from being sent packing by none other than Kevin Durant’s big toe, juuuuust landing on that three-poin...
Have you heard the NFL schedules are out?
The NFL schedule release is the public-relations juggernaut that somehow is designed to be grand yet always comes off as vanilla. Leaks, intentional or not, happened throughout Thursday as the puzzle of the 18-week regular-season extravaganza came into focus. It’s a forced event on the league calend...
Brittney Griner’s detainment extended by a month without explanation
WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner’s detainment in a Russian prison was extended by a month Friday after a court appearance, multiple reports stated. Griner had been expected to appear in court on May 19, despite not being formally charged with any crime. The early appearance yielding a short extension o...
It’s getting late pretty early in Boston
The Red Sox won 92 games last season and went to the ALCS. They had a fair amount of turnover in the offseason, losing Eduardo Rodriguez, Kyle Schwarber, and Hunter Renfroe in free agency, but Boston also added Michael Wacha and Rich Hill to the rotation, got Jackie Bradley Jr. to come back to their...
Joel Embiid is running out of excuses for not getting it done in Philly
Joel Embiid’s MVP-caliber season could come crashing down tonight if he can’t lead his Philadelphia 76ers to a win over the Miami Heat. If Philly gets sent packing in the semifinals again, this will be the fourth time in five years that’s happened. Two things are clear about Embiid’s situation in Ph...
The NFL’s schedule release is dumb. Here’s how to revamp it
The NFL strives to become a year-round player in the professional sports attention economy. After years of being stuffed in their lockers between May and July by the NBA, the doofuses in the NFL’s league office figured the best way to get fans talking about their product in the offseason was to anno...