v Page 1355 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Rockets are the NBA’s most ambitious offseason franchise
After the Denver Nuggets championship parade, it will be the Rockets time to shine. The Houston Rockets’ ‘Light the fuse” mantra has encapsulated their offseason machinations since Jalen Green’s bold IG Live set the tone for the summer by vowing to reach the postseason in 2024. That’s easier said th...

Nikola Jokić made a mockery of Heat culture
Imagine being Pat Riley, Jimmy Butler, and the Miami Heat’s training staff right now. They spent two decades preaching the advantages of elite fitness, conditioning, and mining for diamonds in the rough. Every season, Miami mandates that its players maintain a body fat percentage low enough to go wa...

The Athletic was supposed to own local sports news. Instead, it's getting owned by the current state of media
The Athletic’s plan to replace sports pages worldwide has taken another blow. It announced on Monday that it will be laying off about four percent of its staff, per The Washington Post’s Ben Strauss. Further proof that nothing in media is being replaced just yet. Instead, it is steadily eroding due ...

A chaotic NBA season punctuated by a chaotic championship finish
The perfection of basketball offense. The shooting is too great. There is no way to defend the entire floor. The 3-point shot has ruined basketball. The Denver Nuggets had one of the greatest statistical offenses in NBA history during the 2022-23 NBA regular season, and defeated the Miami Heat in Ga...

Meet Jimmy Butler, the NBA’s Neymar
They go about it in opposite ways, but Neymar and Jimmy Butler end in the same place. They’re both very good to great players. They’re billed as epicenters. It’s just as important, if not more so, that they’re seen as THE guys than just being them. Neymar goes about it with flash and showmanship, wh...

Victor Wembanyama’s French Cup pursuit is a preview of future NBA Finals marquees
Victor Wembanyama is rail-thin, but with hefty expectations on his shoulders across two continents simultaneously. It’s a testament to Wemby’s precocious readiness that he hasn’t wilted under the pressure already. During the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat’s NBA Finals pillow fight, Wembanyama is hoop...

Don’t worry folks, the St. Louis Cardinals still suck
We’ll get the “motherfuck” possibilities out of the way at the top, and perhaps immediately speaking to them will hold them off for a little while longer. But they will happen. 1. The NL Central is complete clown-shoes, and no matter how bad the St. Louis Cardinals play they’ll never be out of it. 2...

Floyd Mayweather Jr. once again steals your money, this time enlisting John Gotti III
Even in retirement, Floyd Mayweather Jr. still knows how to sell a fight and swindle folks out of money. Since officially retiring from the pro boxing ranks undefeated in 2017, Mayweather has put on a few big-money exhibitions, with most becoming a shitshow in one way, or another. The latest money g...

For those famous enough to be asked to throw a first pitch, learn from Roquan Smith — lob it
Roquan Smith is one of the best athletes on the planet. He knows it, because he has bet on himself for his entire career, and the result is that in his sixth NFL season, he will be the highest-paid off-ball linebacker in the league. He fills gaps, chases down running backs, causes turnovers, plays p...

Tomorrow is going to have to wait on Novak Djokovic
Eras don’t end on schedules. There wasn’t an assigned time when Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal exited the royal hall of the ATP Tour, it was just sort of a nebulous “time.” Federer’s knee eventually gave out, it might be that Nadal’s hip has done so as well. It would appear that Novak Djokovic is not...

Manchester City are so good they can survive a Pep Guardiola brain freeze
The joke had become the only hold for any non-Manchester City fan out there. The joke was that Pep Guardiola would always out-Pep himself in the Champions League, and find a new, and creative way to blow it for a team that probably should have won the trophy a while ago. The joke was certainly based...

Yelling at Brittney Griner isn’t going to put Viktor Bout back in prison
The latest example that human beings weren’t meant to have the internet came Saturday. The Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner was traveling with her team when she was confronted by a conservative YouTube host at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport....

What the hell is holding back Damian Lillard?
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. Fuck you....

The Nuggets are immune to the Heat’s Dark Arts
The Miami Heat’s success has been hard to define all postseason. Words like resilience, toughness, and intelligence certainly apply, but that can be said about any team in any sport that makes a deep playoff run. No, Miami has been Jonathan Crane, injecting fear into Gothamites and Bostonians alike....

Alcaraz’s cramps robbed us of satisfying conclusion to dream match against Djokovic
Well, that escalated quickly. It was nearly even in one of the biggest matches tennis has had in decades with a clash of the generations between old-standard Novak Djokovic and rising star Carlos Alcaraz. Then that damn charley horse in Alcaraz’s right leg happened and Djokovic won 10 of the next 11...
![Toronto Blue Jays players didn't want Anthony Bass participating in Pride Night [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/1b3517cbd6ff244321890a0ed9d0fd2b.jpg)
Toronto Blue Jays players didn't want Anthony Bass participating in Pride Night [Update]
Anthony Bass should have learned to stay off of social media — and perhaps pitch better— as he was DFA’d by the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday afternoon....

Donald Trump taking away Miami's spotlight like OJ's Bronco chase
June is typically the unofficial end of the sports calendar and a month-long sporting season finale. Once the calendar flips to late July, MLB’s All-Star festivities, intermittent tennis Grand Slams, and international football competitions are the major scheduled events to keep us going until the NF...
