steph Page 24 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Stephen A. Smith’s ‘presidential aspirations’ are a slap in the face to politicians, Americans at home or abroad
Stephen A. Smith has lost his damn mind....

WWE regains some ‘attitude’ under Triple H’s thumb
The first full month of WWE under Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s thumb is about to wrap up, with all creative direction steering toward the company’s next big show Clash at the Castle taking place this weekend. Slowly but surely, changes are being made to the product, with most having a positive effect....

Now that the PGA season is over, the Saudi Tour has the spotlight to itself — D'oh!
The PGA Tour season is over, and the only PGA-sanctioned event left on the calendar is the President’s Cup, which Saudi Tour golfers are ineligible to play. Cam Smith won’t be included, despite qualifying for the international team, and neither will the other five golfers who announced their move a ...

Is Tyreek Hill the high tide that can lift Tua’s boat?
Mike McDaniel’s pod of Dolphins has already made splashes. In its preseason finale, Miami dropped 48 on the Philadelphia Eagles and Tua Tagovailoa completed 6-of-7 passes for 121 yards and led three scoring drives....

Nets still feel like fool’s gold ahead of reunion tour
Welp. Here we go again....

Kamaru Usman and the other athletes who’ve been stopped at history’s doorstep
Kamaru Usman’s loss to Leon Edwards in the final minute of the fifth round was the fourth latest finish for a UFC championship fight. Usman, the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC will be granted a rematch to regain his title, but his chance to tie Anderson Silva’s 16 consecutive wins is likel...

C.B. Bucknor drags everyone down with him
It was yet another banner day for C.B. Bucknor behind the plate, as we watched in real time while he lost sense of the strike zone and perhaps indeed any sense of direction at all. The plane which the ball must pass through to be called a strike is imaginary, of course, and tough to judge from a pos...

UFC has its moments
I feel like if I ever write about the UFC it’ll be treated like Walter Slobchak dressing down Donnie about walking into the middle of a movie. So when I walked into a friend’s house with a semi serious interest in the Kamaru Usman-Leon Edwards fight, I only knew as much as I gleaned from proofing th...

Skip Bayless tries to dunk on Bronny James
Here we go again, one more time, Skip Bayless getting under people’s skin....

The Lakers playing on opening night is the best choice, despite complaints
It was a reasonable argument last February to want the Los Angeles Lakers off what seemed to be every other NBA nationally televised broadcast. Their season was unpleasant almost from the start, and Anthony Davis missed 42 games. His longest stretch was when he went down with an ankle injury just be...

Triple H and the WWE aren’t doing away with AEW — at least not right now
It may be the most meaningless short-term consequence of Vince McMahon’s resignation as WWE’s chairman and CEO after 40 years as professional wrestling’s most powerful dignitary — the art form’s creative direction. McMahon almost exclusively called the shots from the top since the first full year of...

How bloated are the preseason win totals for the NBA teams fans love to hate?
When oddsmakers release NBA win-total futures, most casual fans scan right to their teams’ over/under and say, “My team’s better than that.” After a prolonged and misguided rant about sharps who do this for a living doing their job, the next move is to find the franchises they hate and bitch about t...

How can Steph Curry be the petty king when that’s already Kevin Durant’s lane?
Steph Curry’s new moniker, The Petty King, feels contrived. He’s on this post-Finals MVP mission to call out everyone who’s ever slighted him. Cool, man, your legacy is as pristine as they come. Why didn’t this persona come out before his long-sought Finals MVP, when you were still vulnerable? ...

WWE’s new creative landscape could open Forbidden Door for AEW star
All Elite Wrestling’s biggest organic star has been off television for 63 days without a peep on when he’ll return. Since his new-age “pipe bomb” promo on the June 1 episode of “Dynamite,” MJF hasn’t surfaced. August’s first episode of AEW’s flagship show has a 99.999999% chance of being the ninth c...

Juan Soto’s departure marked the end ‘The Great Natsby’ era
The last time “Esa Muchacha” blared as Juan Soto stepped to the plate occurred on Monday night when he turned a 95 MPH pitch from New York Mets ace Max Scherzer into a deep centerfield moonshot. Soto later earned a standing ovation in what would be his home finale as a National, but Scherzer being t...

NFL goes easy on Dolphins owner for tampering, tanking — and other things that shouldn't shock you
Another day, another embarrassment for the NFL....

IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Everything is on fire
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we start to worry that Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker might actually win. It’s a terrifying prospect, especially given that his strategy at the moment consists of “avoiding actual debate at all costs” in addition to his old standby, “say l...

Draymond Green’s chasing that farewell contract, but do the Warriors love him like that?
In the aftermath of Golden State’s 2022 NBA title, the expectation was that the Warriors and billionaire owner Joe Lacob’s Midas Touch would continue forever. While reporting on Golden State’s $171 million luxury tax bill, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst referred to its championship as a checkbook win. That ...

Retirement? We all know Vince McMahon didn’t leave WWE of his own volition
Stop calling it a retirement. Without the details of alleged hush payments skyrocketing well beyond $12 million to keep various women quiet, now-former WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon would still be in unquestioned power. He didn’t leave his post of 40 years unprovoked or out of humility to trans...

Which state can field the best starting 5?
Now that the Warriors have returned to glory post-Durant, NBA fans just survived one of the most unbearable periods of the NBA. One filled with superteams and razor-thin parity between the three to four coastal teams with stacked talent (Warriors, Lakers, Nets), and the rest of the small-market team...