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All Eyez On Me: Kendrick Lamar's Dense, Neurotic <i>To Pimp A Butterfly</i>
Kendrick Lamar doesn't make anything easy. Sunday night, he briefly broke the constantly breaking internet by issuing his new album, To Pimp a Butterfly, a full week early on iTunes and multiple streaming services; by Monday afternoon, iTunes had both frantically pulled it back down and just as ...

Round Of 16 Champions League Tie Ends In Sorry Display Of Penalties
After 120 full minutes at the Vicente Calderón in Madrid, the round of 16 Champions League tie between Atletico Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen was level 1-1 on aggregate. Time for some penalties!...

Don Lemon Is Great At His Job
Last night, Don Lemon took to his show, CNN Tonight, to host a discussion of, as he put it, The N-Word. It wasn't the first time he'd done so; nearly two years ago, he devoted an entire special to this topic. Famously, note cards were used, and the question of whether the words "cracker" and "nigger...

Nine Surprises From Unlikely U.S. Marathon Champ Blake Russell
Twenty miles is considered the psychological halfway point in a marathon—quads and hammies are starting to rig, feet are swollen and pulpy, raw skin stings from salty sweat, bodily systems send increasingly frequent and frantic cease-and-desist messages to the brain. The remaining 6.2 miles require ...

We Asked 14 Retired NFL Players: Would You Do It Again?
With Chris Borland's retirement from the San Francisco 49ers at age 24, the question of whether an NFL career is worth the potential price is coming up yet again. This makes it a good time to turn to the people with the most informed opinions on the subject: former NFL players....

Retiring From NFL To Juggle Grenades Is A Bad Idea, Says Mike Florio
Bright and promising 24-year-old 49ers linebacker Chris Borland announced his retirement yesterday, after just one season in the NFL. He wants to preserve his neurological and cognitive functioning, and figures a decade of smashing his head into things isn't the best way to do it. Seems reasonab...

Everyone Wants Chris Borland To Mean Something
The San Francisco 49ers' official statement on Chris Borland's retirement doesn't mention why he's retiring, of course. It has a quote from the general manager on how they respect his decision, and a big fat paragraph on his accomplishments in a successful rookie season, but nothing stands out quite...

Promising NFL Rookie Retires Because Of Concerns Over Head Trauma
Despite being a rookie drafted in the third round, linebacker Chris Borland was an important part of the 49ers defense last season, even starting eight games. With Patrick Willis retiring and Justin Smith reportedly considering the same, the 49ers will rely on Borland even more heavily this season...

What Happens To Enforcers When Hockey Uses Them Up?
More winter Friday nights than not through my first few years of high school, I was in my usual seat at the local arena, three or four rows up behind the home team's bench. On the ice, the Ontario Hockey League's Ottawa 67's, a group of—boys, really, aged 16 to 20. A handful of them would go on to...

James Harden Thrown To Floor By Matt Barnes
James Harden got a step on Clippers D-and-3 guy (where "D" can be understood to stand for "dipshit goon with a sneer and six fouls to give") Matt Barnes in the second quarter; Barnes responded by unleashing his inner Wilber Marshall for some damn reason. For his efforts, he was awarded a flagrant-1...

Boogie Cousins And John Wall Put On A Show; Some Team Also Won I Guess
A point guard and a center generally can't duel in the way we usually think of players dueling—directly, one-on-one, attacking each other at both ends. Apart from the occasional defensive switch or confrontation at the rim, they'll mostly compete from a distance, and indirectly, via their teams an...

Angry Sunderland Fans Leave In The First Half, Throw Scarf At Manager
Playing at home against the team a spot below them on the table, Sunderland had the opportunity today to put some distance between them and relegation. Instead, they went down three goals to Aston Villa in the first 37 minutes. Streams of pissed off Sunderland fans stormed out of the Stadium of Lig...

Russell Westbrook Got a "Triple-Double" Last Night On This "Rebound"
If you were scoring the play above, you would give a missed three-point attempt to Oklahoma City's DJ Augustin and a rebound to Minnesota's Justin Hamilton, right? If so, you could never get a job as Oklahoma City's official scorekeeper. Here is how they scored the play: ...

Why An Alabama Recruit Is Channeling Zac Efron In <i>High School Musical</i>
You could say Richie Petitbon III's senior year took a dramatic turn....

Patrick Reed Takes A Swing At Defending Himself, Slices Into The Woods
A month ago we republished a feature by Shane Ryan about golfer Patrick Reed's tumultuous college career. The story was an adapted version of material that will appear in Ryan's upcoming book, Slaying The Tiger, and had previously appeared on the site Tobacco Road Blues. The article told of how Reed...

News Dude Cries At The Sight Of Sharon Van Etten, Is A Good News Dude
Look, man, it's hard to be moved by things these days. Show me something that isn't Russell Westbrook going coast to coast for a two-handed slam in five seconds, and there's a good chance that my response is going to be, "That's butt." The problem is that a lot of things are butt, but what is defini...

Chris Paul Will Help You Clown Yourself
Last night, in Oklahoma City, Chris Paul turned the Thunder into a Swiffer. Attach all the necessary caveats to that, of course—it's just one game; the Thunder were without Kevin Durant and the helpful version of Serge Ibaka who used to exist before somebody decided he needed to become Walt Willi...

USWNT Striker Christen Press Is Way Too Fast
Like, those six players the USWNT's Christen Press runs past aren't scrubs. That's France, one of the best national teams in the world. And even they can't keep up with Press as, with two wicked bursts, she flies past them like they're stuck in quicksand before passing the ball into the back of th...

The "Blurred Lines" Verdict Is Bad News, Even If You Hate Robin Thicke
Thanks to the decision of a Los Angeles jury yesterday afternoon, pop-music fans have a fun, frightening new game to play: Who's Next? No, not named after the Who album—though maybe its infamous pissing-on-the-wall cover shot might now inspire a lawsuit from Andrew Loog Oldham, who as the Rollin...