um Page 98 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Ranking the NBA’s first round matchups by how likely we are to see an upset

The NBA’s playoffs are easily the most predictable of the major American sports leagues. Without the variability of baseball or the single playoff game format like football, it’s pretty rare that there are any true upsets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. In most years you look at the bracket ...

Boston vs. Kyrie, can everyone lose?

The NBA playoffs have tossed up enough good matchups to keep the first round interesting, even though the NBA usually leans chalky around this time. There weren’t a lot of great games this weekend. The first two on Saturday weren’t bad as the Jazz and Timberwolves got road wins. The Bulls kept thing...

USMNT in the knockout round! An Argentina-Brazil semifinal! Oh, Canada! (and more World Cup predictions)

Instead of a World Cup taking place in the summer, we’re waiting until the late fall for the festivities to start to get to a manageable playing temperature in Qatar. The 2022 FIFA World Cup draw took place a few weeks ago, giving a path to the 37 teams still in contention to lift the trophy. Four w...

It's CJ McCollum's moment now: Paul George out [UPDATED]

This story has been updated....

The Houston Texans are trying so hard to change their image that they’re donating to HBCUs

Hateful people run the same plays when they’re up against the wall. Misogynists tell us they have daughters. Homophobes claim they “love everyone” as God instructed. And racists surrounded themselves with people from the community they’ve discriminated against....

Don’t do this FOX - don’t make Urban Meyer relevant again

If I ever became President (let’s hope that’s never the case), my first executive order would be to make it illegal to say “Urban Meyer” and “NFL” in the same sentence, unless of course that name and organization are separated by either the phrase “does not belong in...” or “does not belong anywhere...

Sorry not sorry, Clayton Kershaw deserved a chance to finish that game

Look, I understand the arguments and the rationale. Clayton Kershaw is coming off an injury-plagued season and he didn’t even have a proper spring training to prepare for this season. He’s 34 and hasn’t had a 200-inning season since 2015. ...

The Timberwolves’ ‘trial and error’ era meets its polar opposite in Memphis

The Minnesota Timberwolves have been getting bodied all over the internet for their excessive celebration after surviving and advancing past the Kawhi-less Clippers team in their play-in game. And rightfully so, because the Timberwolves haven’t done anything yet. Their reward will be a battle agains...

Here’s hoping Lillard is a better GM than LeBron

“You’re really going to do this?” is a question one canceled ABC drama character asks another right before they pack up their sedan and move across the country by themselves. It’s something my family not-so-subtly asked me when I told them I was moving to Chicago after more than a decade in the moun...

Here’s hoping Lillard is a better GM than LeBron

“You’re really going to do this?” is a question one canceled ABC drama character asks another right before they pack up their sedan and move across the country by themselves. It’s something my family not-so-subtly asked me when I told them I was moving to Chicago after more than a decade in the moun...

It’s 2022, we don’t need positions on the All-NBA ballots anymore

Positions in basketball are entirely different than almost every sport. In baseball a pitcher is required to stand at the mound until he decides to throw a pitch, make a pick-off attempt, or step off to take a break. In football, a play cannot be called for an offensive lineman to receive the ball u...

NBA play-in tournament day 2: Wednesday’s games highlight some of the league’s burgeoning young stars

Day two of the play-in tournament features the 9 and 10 seeds from each conference. These games haven’t been talked about as much as the day one games, but could be even more exciting. One of them will be a showdown between two of the hottest young guards in the league, and the other features a play...

Gil Brandt was way out of line

When Jackie opened the door, these men walked through

It took 2,559 days after Jackie Robinson’s debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers for Major League Baseball to have its 42nd Black player appear in a game. Those seven years and two days saw 11 of the league’s 16 franchises integrate. The Boston Red Sox were the last to do so with Pumpsie Green in July 1959...

NBA playoff matchups we’d love to see (and one we wouldn’t)

The 2022 NBA playoffs is an annual garden of forking paths. Teams don’t know who to expect awaiting them in the next round or when their season will end. One injury can swing momentum in the other direction. What we do know is that there are particular matchups that are more palatable than others. C...

And we all thought Barcelona was done big-game hunting

We didn’t really get as big of a window to laugh at Barcelona as we thought or hoped. Proving the life lesson that you need to celebrate anything worth celebrating at that time and that place or you’ll miss the opportunity. Barça is roaring in La Liga right now, all the way up to second after winnin...

The Rockets didn’t win much, but they were a blast to watch towards the end of the season

Once the NCAA Basketball Tournaments come around, the rest of the NBA season can feel like a slog. If you were already upset about players missing games, the volume gets ratcheted up on that, and at that point it’s fairly clear which teams are the best in the league. It’s also hard to muster excitem...

Behold! The craziest questions NFL prospects have been asked leading up to the draft

The most exciting three days of the NFL offseason are quickly approaching, with the NFL draft less than three weeks away. We’ve made it through the combine, player pro days, and individual workouts. During all the excitement, though, one part of the process can leave potential draftees scratching th...

Overpaying Aaron Judge was a mistake the Yankees used to make without blinking

In the scene at the climax of Layer Cake, an English gangster flick Daniel Craig made two years before becoming James Bond, the antagonist goes on this tangent about taking shit, and how eventually, if you climb high enough, you forget what shit even looks like....

Joe Exotic asked Ben Roethlisberger for an autograph from prison… yes, you read that right

I forgot Joe Exotic existed. The Tiger King was the king of Netflix for a few months in 2020, and his fame vanished almost immediately afterward. Even Tiger King Season 2 wasn’t enough to bring Joseph “Exotic” Maldonado-Passage back into the forefront of American pop culture. Now, the man is impriso...