west Page 14 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Latest problem with Josh Giddey; Dame Lillard finally steps up; Dalton Knecht and Reed Sheppard on verge of history
Need any more evidence that Gilbert Arenas’ bellyaching about Europeans and foreigners ruining basketball with their sweet outside strokes is all hot air? I’ll give you one: Josh Giddey. Now that his legal woes appear to be in the rearview mirror, the whispers about his liabilities in the Oklahoma C...

Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are proof that having a <i>Napoleon</i> complex isn’t all bad
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees....

Are these Clippers Kenough?
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees. Next up are the L.A. Clippers and the 2024 season possibly being the culmination of their decade of prosperity....

Don't count on the LA Clippers — they're sure to let you down
The Los Angeles Clippers have been a delightful surprise in the NBA since bouncing back from a rough start once James Harden joined the team at the end of October. ...

If you can’t trust Anthony Edwards, you can’t trust the Timberwolves
I’m not anti-analytics, because data matters, but there’s no way to factor in things like your best player missing tipoff because he was a late arrival, or a coach pulling his second-best player when he’s on pace for a 70 burger. The Minnesota Timberwolves are a very good basketball team, by record,...

Do the Thunder have a Josh Giddey problem?
Need any more evidence that Gilbert Arenas’ bellyaching about Europeans and foreigners ruining basketball with their sweet outside strokes is all hot air? I’ll give you one: Josh Giddey. Now that his legal woes appear to be in the rearview mirror, the whispers about his liabilities in the Oklahoma C...

It's make or break for the Los Angeles Clippers
Curses run deep. They fester in bloodlines, foundations and scorched Earth and are lamented in prose, lyric and declaration. From Shakespeare to Dostoevsky, curses are a part of the canon of human creativity. After the Boston Red Sox broke theirs in 2004 and LeBron James brought a championship to Cl...

Victor Wembanyama finally got a win against Chet Holmgren
Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren play for teams that occupy two very different places in the Western Conference standings. The San Antonio Spurs are going to be in the running for a second-consecutive No. 1 overall pick. The Oklahoma City Thunder are a game behind the Minnesota Timberwolves for t...

Will the real Zion Williamson please stand up?
Zion Williamson’s tantalizing game made him a household name after one season at Duke where he established a new NCAA record for 2-point field goal percentage. Up until this juncture in his career, Williamson has been a gas-guzzling, flying tank in a league stacked with electric convertibles. As a r...

Was Taylor Swift the reason Colin Cowherd's home was broken into?
Fox Sports talking head Colin Cowherd said his Westerly, R.I. house was broken into on Feb. 23, and he theorizes that the alleged perpetrator might have had the wrong address. ...

Jerry Reinsdorf is a villain; MLB's new unis are ugly; Rendon doesn't like baseball
Another day, another billionaire casually asking the taxpayers of his city for a billion dollars so he can get even more money than he already has. ...

Don't be Kenny Smith; Redick blasts Rivers; the Knicks are back; How about that ASG?
You don’t have to put on the pom-poms for Sabrina Ionescu or women’s sports, but too many broadcasters are happy to communicate that women’s participation, or records, or fandom is somehow less than. ...

The Minnesota Timberwolves are the NBA’s best redemption story
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ bounce back from their 2023 nadir has been the NBA’s most remarkable redemption story. The Association may have discontinued its Comeback Player of the Year award, but the Twin Cities’ finest would deserve consideration if that were not the case. Before October, the outlo...

Billionaire octogenarian apparently not embarrased to ask for $1B in taxpayer money
Another day, another billionaire casually asking the taxpayers of his city for a billion dollars so he can get even more money than he already has. ...

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...

As the Thunder return to contention, let's not forget the Supersonics
The Oklahoma City Thunder have executed one of the shortest rebuilding periods in NBA history. Since the breakup of the Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook pairing, leading into the current Thunder 2.0, only lasted three seasons of extreme tanking. Those losing efforts netted them the sixth pick in the ...

NHL 'tough guys' are always cheapshot artists; The cause of increased scoring revealed
For a sport that really loves to tout how tough its players are, hockey players don’t seem to have much tolerance for anything that makes them feel bad in the slightest. At least on the ice. Morgan Rielly of Toronto was just the latest to wet himself when an opponent reminded him just a little too m...

The 49ers not knowing overtime rules is so insanely unacceptable
It’s the day after the Super Bowl and time for a million overreactions to what we witnessed Sunday night. One piece of information that popped up following the 49ers Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs, is that some of San Francisco’s players were not aware of the different playoff overtime rules. While p...

It still doesn't feel like Kobe Bryant is dead
It is still difficult to grasp that Kobe Bryant has not been alive to experience the majority of his post-NBA career enshrinements. He was not here for his Basketball Hall of Fame induction, the NBA All-75 team, or the Thursday unveiling of his statue outside of Crypto.com Arena. ...