Long live North Carolina—Duke
The North Carolina Tar Heels won their first outright regular season ACC title in seven years with an 84-79 win over archenemy Duke on Saturday. The annual season finale for the conference is one of the best things going in college basketball, yet there’s a sinking feeling that fans should relish th...
What matters most about Rudy Gobert’s money signs is he meant it
Renowned aggravator Rudy Gobert pissed off another group of people Friday night, and though getting T’d up isn’t newsworthy in itself, it’s what the Frenchman did to earn a technical that’s interesting. In the closing seconds of the Cleveland-Minnesota game with his team ahead by a point, the Timber...
James Harden finally found a restaurant willing to carry his wine
Are you looking for traditional flavors with a Japanese flare, a stunning lounge with a live DJ, bowling lanes, exotic hookah, a nightclub, and bottomless J. Harden Wine prosecco all in one convenient, classy one-stop shop? Well look no further than Thirteen Houston, James Harden’s new restaurant ve...
Jacksonville Jaguars embezzler went full Florida Man with his $22 million
The Florida man in Amit Patel — the Jaguars’ employee who embezzled $22 million from the team — was very strong. You’d expect that much ill-gotten cash would be spent on things that the cast of The Italian Job would buy, but this is the land of Parrot Heads, so the preferred route is to go hog wild ...
Dalton Knecht and Reed Sheppard could do something not seen since 1974
This year’s NBA Draft has been dubbed the weakest since the Cleveland Cavaliers wasted the first overall pick on Anthony Bennett. There’s no consensus prize, or catchy tank phrase. Just the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Washington Wizards, and Portland Trail Blazers vying to see who can most e...
Minnesota and New York listened to the NBA on load management and guess what happened
The NBA’s annual battle of attrition that precedes the playoffs struck again as Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns is out indefinitely with a torn meniscus. It’s the same ailment that forced Philadelphia Sixers center Joel Embiid to the sidelines, and one that should be treated with a...
The NFL’s franchise tag is un-American
What happens every time an NFL quarterback resets the QB market? A relatively crap quarterback gets overpaid. The reason Daniel Jones netted a four-year $160 million deal after one good season, instead of getting franchise tagged like he should’ve been, is Joe Burrow got enough money that, by compar...
Nick Saban retired, so why is he acting like he was forced out?
For those of us who hoped Nick Saban retiring would be the end of Nick Saban, this idle/jilted version of him might be even more insufferable. In an ESPN story about how Alabama pivoted from Saban to Kalen Deboer in 49 hours, the seven-time title winner revealed that “player attitudes” and the NIL e...
The latest scapegoat for Ben Simmons’ back issues? His agent
Remember when NBA Twitter, now NBA X, spent an entire season obsessing over where Ben Simmons would be traded? It ended up being Brooklyn, and that ended up being the last time he was relevant to professional basketball. The latest update is there is no update, just Simmons’ agent, Bernie Lee, falli...
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,...
LeBron James creates the 40K club, which he’ll populate alone for a long time
The next player to eclipse 40,000 points in the regular season will have a chance at the title of the NBA’s GOAT simply because the numbers LeBron James will retire with are going to be near impossible to top. It’ll either be someone with freakish longevity, or the most prolific scorer ever. At 40,0...
It's 2024, the NFL Draft process shouldn't take this long
The NFL Draft cannot get here soon enough. In its effort to monetize every second of every month, we have to wait and sit through months of speculation and evaluation with narratives conjured out of dead air. What are the Bears going to do with Justin Fields? Why are all the elite athletes opting ou...
NCAA swears fealty to NIL collectives, pauses investigations
The NCAA pretty much had its last real vestige of power stripped after the ruling in the Tennessee case last week, and on Friday, announced that it’s pausing all investigations into booster-backed collectives or other third parties making NIL deals. Despite the chaos and malfeasance that will contin...
The pros and cons of proposed advancements in the NFL and college football
College football might follow in the footsteps of the NFL as the NFL mulls taking a page out from soccer. After the Michigan sign-stealing scandal, in-helmet communicators could be coming to FBS programs, as well as a two-minute timeout. The Shield meanwhile might eschew the chain gang for optical t...
Why is it the Jets are only ever relevant in the offseason?
Oh, Jets. Jets, Jets, Jets. Can’t you do anything right? Current Chief and former Gang Green WR Mecole Hardman was accused by various former New York teammates of leaking offensive game plans to opponents, including Kansas City and Philadelphia. That’s a juicy rumor even if it’s not true, and my gu...
Please do not glorify Mattress Mack’s gambling addiction
Reporting on Mattress Mack McIngvale’s gambling addiction is akin to covering those competitive vaping contests featuring Gen Zers trying to see who can blow the biggest cloud/contract lymphoma the quickest. I guess there’s a human-interest angle, but it also glorifies sports betting to a disgusting...
The ATP tour and Saudi Arabia agree to another round of woke pandering
We need a more menacing term than sports washing because it’s not working. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the ATP tour agreed to a five-year sponsorship Wednesday, with courtside ads slated for the season-ending ATP Finals, Indian Wells (of course), Miami, Madrid, and Beijing....
I’ll give you even odds that Tyreek Hill turns into Antonio Brown in 3 years
Since Tyreek Hill was traded away from the Kansas City Chiefs, he allegedly smacked a guy at a marina, said he wants to be a pornstar, said he wants to fight Jake Paul, aired out his former organization multiple times, had his mansion burn down due to a child playing with fire, had his attorney acci...
In defense of bad officiating
I’m not going to list all of the polarizing topics people argue about on the internet because there’s not enough time in the day, and I typically avoid thinking about things that make me want to chug paint thinner. There’s so little human beings can agree on that we need at least one evil force to u...
Ask not what a free agent running back can do for you, but what you can do for them
Saying there’s no value in running backs was always nonsense, but because bad teams think a ground game is going to make their garbage quarterback and shoddy offensive line redeemable, the stereotype gets furthered. So this offseason when some NFC South team signs Derrick Henry or Josh Jacobs or Saq...