vids Page 14 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Last Night's Winner: The Case For Robot Umpires
In sports, everyone is a winner—some people just win better than others. Like the fallibility of man, or at least of third base umpire Bob Davidson, whose blown call cost the Marlins the game....

Great Passing Sequence Reminds Everyone That Spain Is Pretty Good At Soccer
Spain defeated Poland in their final World Cup tuneup and the obvious highlight was this stunning series of passes that led to a David Silva goal, which officially put the rest of Group H on pants-crapping notice. [Business Insider]...

Commish Gives Salary Cap A Boost
David Stern has lifted the salary cap for next season to $56.1 million, roughly $4 million higher than expected. Great news for the Knicks, who can now afford Carlos Boozer, Ray Allen, and nice crutches for the both of them. [TrueHoop]...

Correction: Mikhail Prokhorov Is Your New Favorite Sports Billionaire
Last week, we pondered whether software tycoon Larry Ellison would soon become the NBA's craziest billionaire owner. Not a chance, once Mike "Mad Dog" Prokhorov suits up for the New Jersey Nets....

Uproar Over 13-Year-Old Recruit Symbolizes The Grim Specter Of Death
It would be easy to say that the verbal commitment of a 13-year-old crystalizes everything that's wrong with college sports. But the real reason there's been so much handwringing is simple: it makes us realize we're old....

Last Night's Winner: Lane Kiffin's Affinity For Young Teenage Boys
In sports, everyone is a winner-some people just win better than others. Like Lane Kiffin, who's already made a cannonball splash at USC thanks to an aspirational verbal commitment from a 13-year-old boy....

Is Gilbert Arenas Crazy Like A Fox?
The odd thing about the announcement of Gilbert Arenas' season-ending suspension was the claim that he asked for it. Literally. Why would someone want to be suspended for a whole year? Obviously, he gets more money that way....

As It Turns Out, NBA Players Haven't Completely Tuned Out David Stern
David Stern insists with robotic regularity that his ballers are the "best athletes in the world". (Sometimes, when he's feeling particularly saucy, he goes with "most extraordinarily gifted".)...

Area Man Nods Approvingly at Wikipedia Entry On Suffrage
You can't fault David Stern's Machiavellian labor-negotiating skills. Even though we're two years away from him pulling a Gary Bettman, he's already tossing throwaway bombs, like this one launched into the lap of SI's Ian Thomsen: Chicks in the NBA!...

The One Where The Spirited Phillies Fan Leaves Us A Phone Message
We get a massive amount of tips in our inbox each week. Some are pretty interesting, but don't get published for one reason or another...

David Stern Peels His Scabs
The referees you've always hated will probably be back for Tuesday's NBA opener, replacing the replacement referees you were going to hate even more. And so ends a monthlong referee lockout that really had nothing to do with the referees....

Sympathy For The Refs
More and more it's looking as if the NBA will lock out its referees and turn to scabs instead, and no one will much protest because NBA refs aren't exactly coalminers in Matewan. But this is nevertheless a bad development....

Where Awkward Happens: Reading The Body Language Of NBA Draft Picks
The David Stern handshake is a newly drafted player's baptism into the NBA. It is also, often as not, hilariously awkward. We asked body language maven Patti Wood to analyze some of these moments from yesterday's Draft....

Another Reason To Scrap The NBA's Age Rule: It's Probably Illegal
Here, via New York employment lawyer Louis Pechman, is yet another sensible argument against the NBA's minimum-age rule: It violates state discrimination laws....

What It's Like To Get Fired In The Press Box
Last week, The Big Lead reported about some of the layoffs at the Baltimore Sun. One of the reporters who was fired, David Steele, recounts his personal trauma for Real Clear Sports....

Stephen Curry Breaks Blogger's Heart
Stephen Curry will forgo his senior season at Davidson and enter the NBA Draft, raining tears all over the Southern Conference—and also breaking a special promise he made to one little blogger....

Is This The End Of Stephen Curry?
Davidson bombed out of the Southern Conference tourney in the semifinals, bringing their season to a halt at 26-7 and probably leaving last year's tourney darling on the outside looking in....

David Falk Says The NBA Players' Union Better Pucker Up
The war is coming—between the NBA Players Association and their league—and if you believe superagent David Falk the players should be prepared to bend over and take what's coming to them....

ESPN Presents Stephen Curry's BracketBusters, Starring Stephen Curry
Surely ESPN spends a lot of time and money putting together its annual BracketBusters event. But if all they want to do is be the PR firm for the Curry family, why bother?...