ti Page 494 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Advice to sports media people: Hype any team but the Clippers

There are certain teams as a sportswriter that you simply should not trust. Despite the way the Detroit Lions are playing, their fans won’t hesitate to tell you a size-14 steel-toe boot is about to drop at any moment. We all know what tortured souls I’m talking about so let’s spare them further angu...

The NBA was on fire in its return to Thursday night on TNT

My original plan was to write about Giannis Antetokounmpo and Victor Wembanyama going head-to-head on Thursday night. These two skyscrapers, who were born on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, played basketball like the Empire State Building if Dr. Octopus’ metallic arms were attached. Those two ...

The Warriors hear the sound of inevitability

When Rome was burning, there wasn’t a definitive moment when it all collapsed. A definitive “BOOM” where everyone can say, “Well, that’s it for the Romans. Good run.” Had there been, it might have sounded like this:...

NFL scriptwriters couldn’t have penned a better ending to the regular season than Bills-Dolphins

Give the NFL credit. The league obviously hired writers from disparate backgrounds to arrange the season’s plotlines. On Sunday, the Week 18 finale will climax with an end-of-season clash of genres between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, who couldn’t be more different. The Dolphins even have a...

NCAA-ESPN's new broadcast deal is great for women's sports

The NCAA and ESPN agreed to an eight-year, $115 million annual deal to broadcast 40 different championships including the women’s college basketball tournament....

Darvin Ham is not the reason the Lakers are losing

News flash: The Miami Heat are a better coached team than the Los Angeles Lakers. It showed in the fourth quarter of their Wednesday night matchup. Erik Spoelstra has been with the Heat organization since 1995 — its head coach since 2008. Following nine seasons as an NBA player, Darvin Ham was an as...

The NFL Pro Bowl is basically Niners vs. Ravens

The NBA's participation policy wasn't meant for guys like Dorian Finney-Smith

The NBA likely implemented its player participation policy — read: anti-load management protocol — so that fans wouldn’t attend games only to see LeBron James and Anthony Davis, or Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, in street clothes. ...

Atlanta and the Dodgers have opted for playoff-only starters

While Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery still wait for their free-agent payday, two powerhouses that were also in need of starting pitching have chosen other routes. Oh, the Dodgers did splash free-agent cash, it was just for one pitcher who’s never pitched in the majors (Yoshinubu Yamamoto) and one...

The Bucks need to beat the Pacers at least twice before we dub their feud a ‘rivalry’

In order for a rivalry to become a full-blown blood feud, there needs to be a little back and forth in the games themselves. The Knicks and Celtics, on paper, should hate each other, but on the court, New York is never seriously competitive so it doesn’t really resonate. ...

Darvin Ham could be scapegoat for Lakers' woes

The Los Angeles Lakers are in the midst of a slump and it looks like the team’s woes will be pinned on Darvin Ham. ...

Wanna watch a smart woman totally body two stupid hockey men?

There is a segment of hockey fans that have always wanted to watch the bubble of hockey men discussing hockey things get totally pierced by even just the smallest bit of logic. For that is the true enemy of most things that have been hockey ethos. So a hearty thank you to Jennifer Botterill, who dur...

Katt Williams channels his inner <i>Last Dance</i> Scottie Pippen on Shannon Sharpe's podcast

Katt Williams had some pissed-off at The Last Dance type of energy during his appearance on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast. Before the episode had been entirely uploaded, clips of him skewering Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and Rickey Smiley were going viral on social media....

Why has MLB free agency ground to a halt?

We were told that once Shohei Ohtani signed, or promised to the Dodgers that he can take all his money after the ocean reclaims Los Angeles as a whole, the rest of the free agents would start to fly off the shelves. It’s now Jan. 3, spring training is about six weeks away, and most of the free agent...

Want to reduce college football Bowl opt-outs? Pay the players

The bowl opt-outs are a letdown, but we all saw what happened to Jaylon Smith. During the 2016 Fiesta Bowl — which was not a playoff game — his leg was mangled. A projected top-five pick fell to the second round. Since then, many star players have made the intelligent business decision to not play i...

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is ascending into the MVP conversation

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA’s dullest superstar, which has allowed him to sneak up behind the league while they sleep on his ascendance. On Tuesday night, SGA propelled the Oklahoma City Thunder to their latest signature win. After a two-week stretch in which they’ve made mincemeat of the NBA...

NHL contenders have something of a goalie crisis

The NHL is almost certainly delighted that it’s seen an uptick in scoring the past three seasons (though down a skosh this season from last). It probably should pull a muscle patting itself on the back for the crackdown on goalie equipment leading to lower average save percentages across the Origina...

Kyrie says he's not reason rabbi's 'I'm Jewish and proud' sign removed [Updated]

Updated Jan. 5: Kyrie Irving denied being why Jazz security asked a rabbi to put down his “I’m a Jew and I’m proud” sign despite an interaction between the two. ...

What’s going on at Harvard with Claudine Gay is similar to how the NFL, sports, and America operate

Claudine Gay is the new Nikole Hannah-Jones in the same way that Eric Bieniemy is the latest version of Sherman Lewis. And while there’s a big difference between being a leader at an institution of higher learning and coaching football, the common denominator remains the same — excluding Black peopl...

This week in the NFL: Pledge allegiance or go cry in the corner

Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught, and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe....