Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Chris Paul’s departure to Houston probably spells the end of the era of the Los Angeles Clippers being a semi-serious championship contender in the loaded Western Conference. You will be forgiven, then, if you thought the next domino to fall would be Blake Griffin’s inevitable departure for greener pastures. Not so!Read more...

The Waco Tribune-Herald has a report detailing the contents of emails included among documents filed in one of the six ongoing Title IX lawsuits against Baylor University. The emails are from then-University Regent Neal “Buddy” Jones, and they’re really, really ugly.Read more...

Patience is a virtue, as Miikka “suNny” Kemppi showed in today’s qualifier matches for the PGL Major in Bucharest.Read more...

Last night old man Nene cashed in on a productive, mostly-healthy season in Houston by agreeing to a four-year, $15 million free agent contract to stay with the Rockets. $15 million over four years isn’t a lot of money for a good two-way backup who played significant minutes for one of the best teams in the NBA!Read more...

News broke shortly after midnight July 1 that Golden State would sign Steph Curry to the full 10-year Designated Player Veteran Extension, a five-year contract worth something like $201 million.Read more...

Here is a fun graphic, tweeted out last night by ESPN after Paul George was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder for a couple decent role-players:Read more...

Arms has been a surprise hit on the Switch, but the competitive-minded players who have latched onto it are having difficulty establishing a standard format for high-level Arms matches.

You knew it was coming the moment Ramona Shelburne broke the news on Twitter that Paul George had been traded to a team other than the Boston Celtics, and for a real dog of a return:Read more...

Four of the first six player signings announced after midnight July 1 were point guards, a fitting ratio given the increasing prominence of the position in modern NBA basketball. Once the Jazz traded for Ricky Rubio, you knew there would be a game of point guard musical chairs to follow, and here we are.Read more...

A surprise winner has made off with the grand prize in the Paul George sweepstakes. The Oklahoma City Thunder traded Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis for the Pacers star this evening, per a report from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.Read more...

Ever since the legacy of Penn State football patriarch Joe Paterno came crashing down amid revelations that his longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was a serial child abuser, and Paterno himself did just the bare minimum when he found out about it, the Paterno family has stuck to a familiar line—none of this…Read more...

Are you ready for the point guard shuffle? The first domino is a trade sending Ricky Rubio to Utah in exchange for a lottery-protected first-round pick.Read more...

Goddammit. You were so close to making it, Gerard, and then you had to go and do this.Read more...

Michael Johnson and Justin Gaethje will fight in Las Vegas in a week to close up this season of The Ultimate Fighter. The two exchanged barbs at the UFC’s summer press conference, and Gaethje revealed himself to be perhaps not the best shit-talker. Thursday, Johnson went at Gaethje and called him the product of incest.

Indoor American 800-meter record holder Ajee Wilson was stripped of that record for testing positive for zeranol, a prohibited substance that’s listed under Anabolic Agents. But according to USADA, Wilson will not serve a suspension because it was determined the source of the zeranol was beef that had been raised with…Read more...

The Mario Kart World Cup kicks off today, featuring teams from 10 nations competing in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch, as well as Mario Kart Wii, a 2008 classic that remains a touchstone for the Mario Kart competitive scene. Both games feature twelve-player races, so each nation will put forward its six…Read more...

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!Read more...

Competitive League of Legends has grown past just the five-player line-up. Coaching staff and more people in charge of training, guiding, and managing players are becoming necessary for a successful team eyeing a spot at the top of the League Championship Series.

The NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Committee just announced that it’s changing the format for the national championships to make it more hospitable for TV broadcast. Who knew that NCAA sports had anything to do with money?

It’s the smallest thing, really. Maybe you already do it! But maybe you do not already do it, and you have wondered why the food you cook always seems underwhelming. Probably there are lots of reasons why the food you cook always seems underwhelming, not least among them your pathological inability to value anything…Read more...

Here’s video of UFC champion Conor McGregor, who will soon be stepping into a boxing ring to take on one of the best fighters in history, preparing for that match:Read more...

I’ve been taking my kids to the beach for years now and in that time we have brought along any number of cumbersome, worthless beach toys: bulldozers and rakes and sand trowels and bad frisbees and this little wheel thingie where you put water in the top and it makes the wheel go spin-spin. I have carried these toys…Read more...

It wasn’t so long ago that Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek, then presiding over the latest lost season in New York, stood in front of reporters and told them that it was a mistake to try to combine his own offensive concepts with Phil Jackson’s favored Triangle system, and implied that the team would be fully…Read more...

Jaromir Jagr played pretty well, not just for a 45-year-old, but for any hockey player in 2017. He notched 16 goals and 30 assists for the Florida Panthers, and Jagr was first on the team in net on-ice shot attempts. As the season went on and Jagr kept skating in every game, the old man’s remark that he would play…Read more...

Last week the Star Wars braintrust shitcanned directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller from the upcoming Han Solo spinoff movie, and replaced them with longtime Ron “Opie Cunningham is a BASTARD” Howard. Should this concern the LEGENDARY FANS OF STAR WARS NATION, or does this movie still have a chance to not suck? That,…Read more...

Some hedging:

Nationals shortstop Trea Turner took a pitch on his right wrist during last night’s game against the Cubs, and eventually had to come out of the game. Once the game was over, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed:

Homer Bailey made his first major-league start of the year last week. He lasted less than two innings and allowed eight runs. He made his second major-league start of the year tonight, and it was... better! Definitely better. It sucked, but it was better. (Bailey, as a reminder, is making $19 million this year. He’s…Read more...

Dustin Fowler’s debut in the bigs ended as quickly and disastrously as one could imagine as the rookie Yankees outfielder crashed into the wall in foul territory in Chicago and had to be carted off with what appears to be a serious leg injury.Read more...

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr says that the team has not yet received an invitation to the White House, but they’ll have a group discussion about it if they do and will consider attending.Read more...

Two days after signing Francisco Rodriguez to a minor-league deal, the Nationals have kept things going by scooping up yet another shaky reliever who has seen better days—Kevin Jepsen, whose “better days” in this case were really never all that great.Read more...

Jan Bakelants, most famous for winning the first stage of the 2013 Tour de France and wearing the yellow jersey for a spell, is going to this year’s Tour for AG2R La Mondiale, and he wants everyone to know he’s really horny.

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Stay hydrated.Read more...

Ibrahim Johnson, brother of five-star Texas commit Mohamed Bamba, posted a 22-minute Facebook Live video on Monday in which he repeated the phrase “long story short” at least a dozen times and claimed Bamba received, amongst other things, shoes, vacations, dental work, a television, a $200-per-week allowance, and…Read more...

The New York Times announced earlier this month that it was “restructuring” its copy desk, which is corporate-speak for laying off lots of copy editors, turning more than 100 jobs into about 50. Today, fellow Times reporters protested. As they should.Read more...

Police have found Venus Williams to be at fault in a June 9 car crash that killed a 78-year-old man in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. She has not, as of yet, been issued any citations or traffic violations.Read more...

A suspect who led cops on a chase from Louisville to the southeast Indiana backwoods treated a few dozen police cruisers like Barry Sanders treated NFL defenses as he juked, reversed, and eventually ran around in laps before being corralled and eventually–it appears—kicked and punched by the presumably embarrassed…Read more...

What’s a cool thing to do in Turkey if you’re a dog? Check out some classical music, duh.

In the 89th minute of the Confederations Cup semifinal between Mexico and Germany, Mexico substitute Marco Fabián, while standing midway between the halfway line and the penalty box, received a pass off a free kick, stepped up to the ball, and clobbered the hell out of it.Read more...

For the 104th time in history, a horde of bird-shaped dudes will climb onto their bikes, ride circles around France, and finish in Paris even more bird-shaped than when they started. Yes, the Tour de France starts this weekend in Germany (we’ll get to that) and will track a 3,540-kilometer course south from Düsseldorf…Read more...

Red Sox starter Rick Porcello seems to have been body-snatched. After winning the AL Cy Young last year, Porcello has now allowed four or more runs 10 times this season, which, per The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, leads the majors. His ERA is an unsightly 5.06, and opponents are hitting .309 against him, up from .228…Read more...

Lionel Messi is getting married to his longtime partner and the mother of his two children, Antonella Roccuzzo, on Friday in their hometown of Rosario, Argentina. The wedding is every bit the lavish extravaganza you’d expect from the rich and famous, and Messi and co. have ensured the event will be duly covered.

Li Haotong bogeyed the par-3 11th hole at the French Open today, and in a moment of frustration snapped his putter over his knee and tossed it into a nearby water hazard. A little later, while Li was playing the 13th hole, his mother went into the lake to retrieve the putter:

Donald Trump tweeted something very unkind about one of the hosts of a stupid-ass worthless morning cable news politics show. Oh no. The Republicans, they are very disappointed.

For the first time in Dota 2 history, there will be no defending champion at this year’s International (barring the very first).Read more...

Las Vegas Fox station KVVU’s Ted Pretty found himself assigned to fireworks-biz coverage yesterday afternoon, and the meteorologist’s interaction with a back-talking young boy made the clip an internet sensation. It’s all a setup, of course; that’s Pretty’s son doing the ownage, as is made pretty obvious by the…Read more...

Jimmy Butler held his introductory press conference up in Minnesota this morning, and when he was asked about rumors of his discontent in Chicago, he waved it off and encouraged anyone who wanted to to hit him up. “My phone’s in my back pocket,” he said, “773-899-6071.”Read more...

A pigeon briefly disrupted a Wimbledon qualifying match Tuesday between Amandine Hesse and Miyu Kato. Hesse swatted at the invader with her racket and a ball boy chased after it, trying to scare it off the court. Unperturbed, the pigeon alighted briefly on the net, before heading to a tree next to the court.Read more...

Thirty years ago The Untouchables, Brian De Palma’s most commercial movie to that point, was released and helped launch Kevin Costner as an All-American star. This review by Pauline Kael originally appeared in The New Yorker and appears here with permission from the author’s estate.