vic Page 15 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Barcelona might prove every fan’s conspiracy theory to be true
You’ve heard that guy at the other end of the bar. It’s impossible to miss, given the volume, and sincerity with which that particular message is always delivered. It’s always along the lines of, “These refs are in the bag!” Here in Chicago, it’s pronounced more like, “Dese jagbag refs are in da baa...
First rule of team social media: Don’t s**tpost your own player
It didn’t take long for SSC Napoli to crash from the dizzying heights of their third-ever Scudetto last spring. First, manager Luciano Spalletti left the club and eventually took the Italian national team manager’s job. And then the team got off to a very wonky start this season in Serie A, collecti...
Final 2023 NFL receiving yards leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar....
Novak Djokovic is tennis' unquestioned GOAT. Is there anyone who could catch up to him?
It isn’t a question as to who the male tennis GOAT is anymore. In recent years Novak Djokovic’s almost-robotic dominance as he continues to age has pushed him ahead of his contemporaries and predecessors. One of Djokovic’s greatest challengers to the crown conceded the throne recently when Rafael Na...
Hakeem Olajuwon charges $50K to teach what cannot be taught — good for him
One of the best/least consequential storylines in all of sports is of the big man who goes to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Dream Shake academy to learn one of the most lethal, and unteachable, moves in the history of the NBA. At $50,000 a session, it’s as close to a Ponzi scheme as you’re going to get without ...
Is there any point in playing this Champions League?
Nope, not really! But my editors and management insist that these posts are longer than three words, so I guess I’ll have to explain. If Manchester City waltzed to last year’s trophy, only really sweating in the final for about an hour against a stubborn Inter, they very well may never get out of a ...
Djokovic and Gauff were machines at the US Open
There are a lot of ways to win in tennis. Novak Djokovic has found all of them. Coco Gauff may yet one day, though she found the one for this US Open. While Djokovic has had to vary his game at various points to overcome various challenges, at the base of it all remains the same truth as the day he ...
Coco Gauff will write her own story
When Coco Gauff beat Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, a flood of expectations followed considering she was 15, American, Black, and had just ousted tennis royalty. The talent and potential was obvious enough, yet there are too many variables and unknowns to account for that calling anything a fo...
USA’s FIBA World Cup loss to Germany proves something needs to change before the 2024 Olympics
The Americans will leave this year’s FIBA World Cup without a title....
Kim Mulkey getting paid is just latest evidence that college sports is alive and well
Locking in Kim Mulkey as a Bayou Bengal for life was always a matter of when, not if, especially coming after leading LSU to a national championship in her second season on campus. No matter what you think of Mulkey off the court — and trust me, there’s plenty to criticize — she’s one heck of a bask...
The US Open has been a tough watch the past few days
The US Open used to bill itself as “The World’s Toughest Tennis.” It’s New York, which has to bill anything having to do with itself as the “biggest and toughest” or the city will collapse in on itself. But the Open was on hardcourt, it was at the end of summer so it was hot, and they used to make p...
Ben Shelton's moment has arrived
I went to the US Open last night. First time inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and on the grounds in Flushing. It was also my first professional tennis event since attending the semifinals of the 2003 Legg Mason Tennis Classic and watching Andre Agassi lose in a third-set tiebreaker. The US Open dangles be...
Ben Shelton feels limitless
There’s been a lament, until recently, that on the men’s side American tennis just had a ceiling. And that ceiling wasn’t anywhere close to winning a Grand Slam. Which is a little unfair to Andy Roddick, who without the existence of Roger Federer would have been a multi-Wimbledon champion and probab...
Maybe Noah Lyles was right about the NBA after all
The NBA announced Wednesday morning that the Dallas Mavericks will take on Euro League champions Real Madrid in a preseason exhibition on Oct. 10 in Spain. It isn’t unusual for the NBA to send teams to other countries for games before the start of the regular season, but this announcement’s timing ...
After 30 years (!!), it is finally time for Venus Williams to call it a career
Unlike at this time last year, the central figure of the US Open isn’t a Williams sister. Serena’s matches were all appointment television, maybe because of the known stakes, being one of tennis’ all-time great’s last event. And Flushing lost its luster after Serena’s third-round exit, until the sta...
When did the New York Knicks become a franchise worth stealing ideas from?
Is the NBA truly a copycat league? And if so, what would the Toronto Raptors want with New York Knicks intel?...
Spanish FA President Luis Rubiales is a creep
Update Aug. 24: According to multiple reports, Luis Rubiales plans to resign....
Victor Conte: Players are still doping and the leagues know it
There is a warped irony in the timing between Netflix’s new sports-doping documentary, Untold: Hall of Shame, and the most recent suspension of a professional athlete for violating a league’s performance-enhancing drug policy....
The 2023 Basketball Hall of Fame class represents 40 years of growth in the sport
The way that the NBA game is currently played — the spacing, position fluidity, the resting of stars during the regular season — all of that and more has been in the works for 20 years. Prioritizing 3-point shooting to maximize room for drivers and post players did not start and end with Mike D’Anto...
The latest league to try to compete with the NFL is already doomed
There’s no doubt the NFL is the most popular sports league in America, if not the world. Domestically, the second-place NBA isn’t even close to it. Trying to replicate the NFL’s mainstream success has been a bunch of offshoot professional leagues, giving opportunities to players several steps down f...