si Page 608 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
How Those 3-on-3 Overtime Rules Would Cut Down NHL Shootouts
The NHL general managers are having their annual meetings this week and for the second year in a row they are discussing rule changes to decrease the number of games that are resolved by a shootout. The particular ideas they're tossing around—centered around adopting a 3-on-3 overtime—stand a very g...
All Eyez On Me: Kendrick Lamar's Dense, Neurotic <i>To Pimp A Butterfly</i>
Kendrick Lamar doesn't make anything easy. Sunday night, he briefly broke the constantly breaking internet by issuing his new album, To Pimp a Butterfly, a full week early on iTunes and multiple streaming services; by Monday afternoon, iTunes had both frantically pulled it back down and just as ...
Why The Size Of Your NCAA Tournament Pool Matters
You can have the best analytics on your side. You could even watch 100 hours of college basketball a week to prepare for filling out your bracket. None of this matters for the wrong pool. And just about the only wrong sort of pool is a big one. Let me repeat: DO NOT enter a big pool. Here's why....
We Asked 14 Retired NFL Players: Would You Do It Again?
With Chris Borland's retirement from the San Francisco 49ers at age 24, the question of whether an NFL career is worth the potential price is coming up yet again. This makes it a good time to turn to the people with the most informed opinions on the subject: former NFL players....
Retiring From NFL To Juggle Grenades Is A Bad Idea, Says Mike Florio
Bright and promising 24-year-old 49ers linebacker Chris Borland announced his retirement yesterday, after just one season in the NFL. He wants to preserve his neurological and cognitive functioning, and figures a decade of smashing his head into things isn't the best way to do it. Seems reasonab...
Everyone Wants Chris Borland To Mean Something
The San Francisco 49ers' official statement on Chris Borland's retirement doesn't mention why he's retiring, of course. It has a quote from the general manager on how they respect his decision, and a big fat paragraph on his accomplishments in a successful rookie season, but nothing stands out quite...
Promising NFL Rookie Retires Because Of Concerns Over Head Trauma
Despite being a rookie drafted in the third round, linebacker Chris Borland was an important part of the 49ers defense last season, even starting eight games. With Patrick Willis retiring and Justin Smith reportedly considering the same, the 49ers will rely on Borland even more heavily this season...
Exciting NCAA Tourney Upsets: Not Brought To You By Enforced Amateurism
Over the next week, a relatively unheralded team from a small conference will probably defeat a blue blood program from a major conference. This will be surprising because we will have expected the more powerful team to win, what with their larger budget, better-paid coach, etc....
What Happens To Enforcers When Hockey Uses Them Up?
More winter Friday nights than not through my first few years of high school, I was in my usual seat at the local arena, three or four rows up behind the home team's bench. On the ice, the Ontario Hockey League's Ottawa 67's, a group of—boys, really, aged 16 to 20. A handful of them would go on to...
Bill Simmons Questions ESPN's Support Of Grantland
At SXSW, Bill Simmons gave a legitimately interesting interview to Re/code. It features Simmons sliding from passive-aggression to bluntness, but always railing against his ESPN bosses for not giving Grantland the funding or credit he believes it deserves. ...
How To Fight Depression
It has been a long goddamn winter. (At least it has here on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, i.e. the center of the known universe.) If you and your people are anything like me and mine, all your conversations over the past few months have tended towards serious discussions of the end ti...
Boogie Cousins And John Wall Put On A Show; Some Team Also Won I Guess
A point guard and a center generally can't duel in the way we usually think of players dueling—directly, one-on-one, attacking each other at both ends. Apart from the occasional defensive switch or confrontation at the rim, they'll mostly compete from a distance, and indirectly, via their teams an...
How To Make Mashed Cauliflower, Because It Goddamn Tastes Great
This article originally appeared on October 12, 2013. I'm republishing it today because I went on an insane cauliflower kick this week, and also for the lesser reason that I couldn't find good ingredients for what I wanted to cook. If you're looking for something especially St. Patrick's Day-ish, ...
Bill Simmons Is A Name-Dropping Waste
So Bill Simmons offered a "sneak" preview today of the third part of his NBA Trade Value column. And yes, his self-mythologizing has gotten to the point where he a) breaks some random-ass rankings into three parts, b) releases a "sneak preview" of the third part of those rankings because "we couldn...
Now There's A Ranch-Dressing Restaurant, So Let's Walk Into The Ocean
Listen. I say the following with a pristine record of support for unhealthful dairy-based coating glops—both as a genre of foodstuffs and in most specific instances—as well as with the firm backing of all available science: Ranch dressing is bad. Bad dressing....
Why An Alabama Recruit Is Channeling Zac Efron In <i>High School Musical</i>
You could say Richie Petitbon III's senior year took a dramatic turn....
How Anthony Davis Gives The Pelicans Open Looks They Don't Deserve
Good ball movement generates open shots. This is Basketball 101, so fundamental to the game's primary education it may as well come down on stone tablets to every young player. It's proven: perhaps to the relief of youth coaches around the country, SportVU player-tracking shows that ball movement in...
Antrel Rolle Signed With Chicago After Getting A Message From God/Orbitz
Longtime Giants safety Antrel Rolle signed with the Chicago Bears this week, but leaving New York was not a decision he treated lightly. While a guest on WFAN sports radio today, Rolle explained that he agonized over the decision, even going so far as to ask God for a sign telling him what to do. ...
Read The Bullshit Charts A "Scientist" Is Hawking To Sports Teams
Every team wants the perfect draft pick. It's a deceptively simple-sounding goal that haunts every executive in sports, because they are being asked to do the nearly impossible—predict what human beings will do. Sure, every few years a player like Andrew Luck or Bryce Harper comes along who simply...
News Dude Cries At The Sight Of Sharon Van Etten, Is A Good News Dude
Look, man, it's hard to be moved by things these days. Show me something that isn't Russell Westbrook going coast to coast for a two-handed slam in five seconds, and there's a good chance that my response is going to be, "That's butt." The problem is that a lot of things are butt, but what is defini...