unc Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Dodgers send 3B Max Muncy to IL, activate OF Jason Heyward
The Los Angeles Dodgers placed All-Star infielder Max Muncy on the injured list Friday with an oblique strain and reinstated 15-year veteran Jason Heyward from the IL.,The Dodgers made a number of moves, among them sending center fielder James Outman to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Outman finished third ...

Big men are back in style in the NBA
The 1995-96 season was the end of the golden era for big men in the NBA. Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Shaquille O’Neal were stuffing opponents into lockers with their unstoppable back-to-the-basket games. They were the superstars in the paint, but Alonzo Mourning, Rik Smits, a...

NBA coaches should be forced to participate in All-Star festivities, too
The NBA wanting a buy-in from its stars is an understandable expectation. However, coaches are rarely a part of the All-Star festivities aside from the Eastern and Western Conference coaches. Everyone except for gym rat Tom Thibodeau is on vacation unwinding from the daily rigors of an 82-game grind...

Who is Mr. Franchise for each NBA team in the 21st century?
Michael Jordan will always be synonymous with the Chicago Bulls. Same thing for Magic Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird with the Boston Celtics. But since the turn of the 21st Century, some teams have gone a decade without a face of the franchise (think the Detroit Pistons and Orlan...

The ghost of Golden State is starting to make some noise
Steph Curry’s high-arcing game-winner to sink the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night only strengthened his runaway case as The Association’s Most Clutch Player of the Year. An ensuing win over Utah on Monday positioned the Warriors back above the .500 mantle for the first time since Dec. 23. ...

The Dallas Mavericks did not just go all-in for PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford
The NBA trade deadline was unsurprisingly mundane except for one team: the Dallas Mavericks. Sitting at 29-23, good for eighth in the West, GM Nico Harrison jettisoned Richaun Holmes, Seth Curry, Grant Williams and draft picks in two separate trades for PJ Washington from the Charlotte Hornets, and ...

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP heist is nearly complete
Joel Embiid’s departure from the MVP race while he undergoes minor surgery to repair a displaced flap in his meniscus has created a vacancy. His coronation has now become a vastly different two-man heat. With due respect to Luka Doncic’s gaudy numbers, he’ll be a long shot as long as the Dallas Mave...

I rewatched the Nipplegate halftime show for the first time in 20 years and it was magnificent
You — yes, I am talking to you — are getting old. I might have pointed at my own face in the mirror and said that when Xwitter informed me that Thursday was the 20th anniversary of the infamous Nipplegate halftime show. ...

The case for — and against — Joel Embiid for MVP
Joel Embiid, the world’s best regular-season player, is closing in on his second consecutive MVP if he remains upright. When active, Embiid is a force of nature, bending defenses to his whim and simultaneously wielding an unduly influence over Philadelphia’s defense....

Jim Harbaugh and the HCs that also played for their teams
Jim Harbaugh is returning to the NFL as the next head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. What you might have forgotten is that he played quarterback for the franchise in 1999 and 2000 — back when the Bolts were still in San Diego....

Magic's return and the NBA All-Star Game's most memorable moments
The 2024 NBA All-Star Game tips off in Indianapolis in just a few weeks, with starters being named tonight. Whoever makes it, they’ll have some big shoes to fill. The All-Star Game is full of some of the most iconic moments in NBA history. Here are some of the performances that make the weekend so s...

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...

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...

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...

Yankees, desperate for arms, sign pitcher who hates them
It says something about the state of the New York Yankees these days, this self-imposed state, that instead of shopping at the top of the market for someone, anyone, to join Gerrit Cole that isn’t made of dead bugs (Carlos Rodon) or terrible (pretty much everyone else, and Rodon) they’ll turn to a p...

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...

Mike Vrabel won't be out of a job for long
The Tennessee Titans wasted no time getting their offseason started and they’ve already begun to clean house by parting ways with head coach Mike Vrabel. We already knew the organization was leaning toward a rebuild with Derrick Henry’s future up in the air seemingly all season. But saying goodbye t...

Sick, Sad World of Sports: Jumbo holiday edition
The holidays are a stressful time for everyone, including criminals, athletes moonlighting as criminals, and criminals moonlighting as athletes. ...

Every NFL team's retired jersey numbers
One of the biggest honors in all of sports is to have your number retired by your respective franchise. No one else will be able to wear it after you, cementing your legacy in the rafters or in a ring of honor/team hall of fame. Here are all of the officially retired numbers by the NFL (minus the Ba...

In honor of the Magic retiring Shaq's number, here is every NBA team's retired jersey numbers
With the announcement that the Orlando Magic will retire Shaquille O’Neal’s jersey, the NBA has finally done it! All 30 teams have officially retired a jersey number for a specific player (Yes, before Shaq, the Magic’s only jersey retired was No. 6 for “The Sixth Man,” a.k.a the fans)....