the-nba Page 8 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A playoff game for the top pick in the NFL Draft sounds good — until you remember that human beings would be participating in it
Professional athletes play sports for two reasons: They play to make money and to win games. There is no other incentive necessary, or that would even work, to get the maximum effort out of players. And what would certainly be a terrible idea, is adding a “playoff game,” in which the result is the w...

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown need a two-man game
The best duo in the NBA put on a show against the best team in the East on Friday night. Denver’s 102-100 win over Boston snapped the Celtics’ perfect mark at TD Garden this season, and 27-game home-winning streak overall. Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray combined for 69 points, 20 rebounds and 14 assi...

Blame Michael Jordan for Krause widow disgrace; Rudy Gobert trade finally paying off; Lakers need Zach LaVine
Michael Jordan won a widow getting booed. My colleague Stephen Knox covered this yesterday, the booing of Jerry Krause’s widow Thelma during the Chicago Bulls’ Ring of Honor ceremony on Friday, and he isn’t wrong. It’s another “feather” in the “cap” of Jerry Reinsdorf, though he wouldn’t have been i...

Who's the best at each position in the NBA? We have answers
Before you jump down our throat for ranking by position in a positionless NBA, take a deep breath. It’s fun. So, let it happen, and let’s talk hoops. The rest of the world is catching up to America’s basketball dominance. Out of the five positions, four of our picks are not from America. On the flip...

Soccer’s had load management for some time — now there just might be more of it
As if on cue, one of soccer’s biggest stars on one of the world’s biggest clubs went down with injury in the Africa Cup of Nations. While there’s not a diagnosis yet, Mohamed Salah limped off just before the half in Egypt’s draw against Ghana on Thursday. This comes a day after Kylian Mbappé warned ...

Deandre Ayton’s ice capades the latest embarrassment in Portland’s rebuild
The NBA trade market is open for business and one team in particular would like you to know that it is jarringly open to offers. The Portland Trail Blazers might not have issued a news release saying as much, yet when your starting center misses a game due to too much ice, the telltale signs of rebu...

Pascal Siakam makes the Pacers good at what they’re bad at, excellent at what they do best
The calendar has not yet reached February, but the Indiana Pacers have decided to kick the trade deadline into high gear. The No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference made a win-now move with darkhorse MVP candidate Tyrese Haliburton currently sidelined with a hamstring injury. Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnaro...

Pacers acquire Pascal Siakam, last piece of Raptors' 2019 championship squad
The Raptors’ fire sale continues. The Indiana Pacers are finalizing a trade to acquire Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam, according to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. According to Woj, the Pacers will send Bruce Brown, Jordan Nwora, and three first-round picks in the deal. The New Orlea...

Mbappe bemoans lack of 'load management' in European soccer
Ligue 1 and the NBA are two leagues that usually don’t go together, but French soccer superstar Kylian Mbappé is worried that European soccer is starting to mimic professional basketball in one very specific way....

Isn't it about time the NBA forces James Dolan to sell the Knicks?
I did not know what I was getting into when I became a Knicks fan. I got into it to find a bond between my father and me. He grew up as a New York street ball legend who listened to the Knicks on transistor radios with his buddies, huddled around a car drinking tallboys and sharing a joint. As a chu...

The Pistons should be sending thank you cards to the Lions
Midway through January of 2024, Detroit exists at the cross-section of grief and euphoria. Grief for the terminally ill Detroit Pistons and euphoria towards the Detroit Lions reanimating. Nothing encapsulates the circle of life and sports quite like the present-day 313. There’s even a dash of relief...

Alperen Şengün has a chance to be as good as Nikola Jokić
Every other generation, a player changes how his position is taught, scouted and played. For the current generation of players entering their prime years, that dude is Nikola Jokić. The “Joker” has taken the passing acumen of former bigs Vlade Divac, Yao Ming, Bill Walton and Arvydas Sabonis and com...

What do you think about that lousy Rudy Gobert trade now?
From the moment it happened in the summer of 2022, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ acquisition of Rudy Gobert from the Utah Jazz looked like an all-time terrible trade. But suddenly, the Timberwolves have the NBA’s second-best record, the best in the West, and the best defensive rating at 108 this seaso...

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, here are some of the best HBCU athletes to make it in the pros
We’ve already highlighted some of the famous Black celebrities who are HBCU alumni, but what about the athletes?...

Kim Mulkey & LSU's diversity flap; Who's on NBA trade block?; Steve Kerr is wrong about Draymond Green
Kim Mulkey has consistently shown us where she stands on social matters. She leans to The Right, which is her right. But when 83 percent of your team are women of color, it’s on you to answer for how your employer’s decisions will affect them. - Carron J. Phillips Read More...

Cutter Gauthier drama comes to head in Philly; Tennis world has 'gross' moment; NFL gimmicks finally fall short
The NFL season zips by, which might be one of the hundreds of reasons it remains our national religion. There isn’t really time to get bored with it and everything that happens in it feels truly important. Which means any team that can string a few good weeks together has turned some mythical corner...

Here's to Golden State learning to age gracefully
Golden State is probably permanently entrenched as a middle-of-the-pack team. There are no renovating crumbling support beams around their Big 3 pillars because they are the source of deterioration. All they can do now is continue their reign as the most well-adjusted teammates ever cobbled together...

The latest NBA-Netflix project shows just how little creativity is left in Hollywood
Netflix is teaming up with the NBA to do a basketball version of the NFL Quarterback Show series. Since Hollywood and sports are about copycatting what’s worked in the past, it’s no surprise the streaming service is immediately following up with a hoop’s version. Cameras will follow around five of t...

Pistons-Spurs matchup should be mandatory viewing for fringe NBA prospects
What If I told you that we’re almost at the halfway point of the NBA season and two teams with two of the best young players in the league don’t have 10 wins between them? And what if I told you that tonight’s matchup between Cade Cunningham’s Detroit Pistons and Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spur...

Steve Kerr has it all wrong about Draymond Green's return
One chapter in the Draymond Green saga is closing and a new one is beginning. He was reinstated by the NBA and has returned to the Golden State Warriors’ facility. Green has been away from the team for more than three weeks and is currently working to ramp himself up for game activity. ...