Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

John Wall is still pretty good. It’s okay to have forgotten.

The Nuggets’ 95-86 win over the Raptors on Sunday night wasn’t the prettiest imaginable matchup between each conference’s No. 1 team. It looked a lot more like the league’s No. 4 and No. 7 defense dragging each other through the muck while coping with a rash of injuries and putrid shooting, which happens to be another…Read more...

Zack Steffen, an American soccer player who currently plies his trade on U.S. soil, is set to join the English Premier League’s reigning champions. The Columbus Crew have announced that the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year will be moved to Manchester City Football Club next summer for an undisclosed transfer fee. That fee…Read more...

It might look like a run of the mill USB battery pack, but EnergyFlux’s Enduro pulls double duty as an electric hand warmer. Its 7800mAh of power can recharge your phone a couple of times, or heat the exterior up to 109 degrees for about seven hours, depending on how cold it is outside.

What has been a nightmare season for the Blackhawks has the potential to get a lot worse. Goaltender Corey Crawford, who missed nearly 10 months recovering from a concussion suffered almost exactly one year ago, was concussed again in Sunday night’s 7-3 loss to the Sharks.

Jacksonville Jaguars v. Washington Racists “Week 15 action” news. What will be remembered from this day? Only these words:Read more...

A Dyson vacuum, fitness trackers, anime Blu-Rays and discounted USB-C cables kick off Monday’s best deals.

On April 1, 2016, Colin Dew-Becker joined degenerates nationwide in a nightly ritual: blowing money on daily fantasy sports. He lost $100 on a wager, plus $9 in fees, in an NBA head-to-head contest on FanDuel. In point of fact, Dew-Becker was positively smoked, losing by a score of 221.1 points to 96.3 points. So…Read more...

io9 Ryan Reynolds Sent a Gift to the Guy Who Changed the Avengers: Endgame URL Into a Deadpool Advertisement | Lifehacker Quickly Figure Out What the Visa Requirements Are For Every Country With This Site | Kotaku Marvel At China’s Own Iron Man Type Movie | Jalopnik Lincoln’s Making 80 Special Edition Continentals…Read more...

The Champions League draw for the Round of 16 went down on Monday morning, and three of the four advancing English teams are going to have a very difficult road. Tottenham drew Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund; Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool got perennial powerhouse Bayern Munich; and—in the marquee match-up—a…Read more...

What exactly are the Seahawks? Are they closer to the team that stumbled out to records of 0-2, 2-3, and 4-5? Or to the team that then reeled off four wins in a row and looked entirely ready to come into Santa Clara and claim a playoff berth on their lowly rivals’ home field? Or the team that promptly barfed up a…Read more...

Sawyer makes some of the highest rated insect repellent on Amazon, as well as a portable water filter that we actually like better than LifeStraw, so if you still haven’t found the right gifts for the campers and hikers in your life, Amazon’s one-day Sawyer sale could be just what you were waiting for.

There was no Jesse James horror play this time around for the Steelers. Although Tom Brady did make all of Pittsburgh nervous with a methodical and eerily familiar fourth-quarter drive, it was hindered by a holding penalty and ended with a turnover on downs. The Steelers maintain their slim lead in the AFC North, and…Read more...

Zia Cooke, a South Carolina commit and ESPN’s seventh-ranked prospect from the 2019 class, put on a show Saturday, dropping a career-high 43 points in the fifth game of her senior season. The highlight reel from the game featured pretty much everything you’d want from a high school mixtape: step-back jumpers, and-one…Read more...

Rodions Kurucs, an intriguing prospect out of Latvia, earned his second career start for the Brooklyn Nets today. At one point in the third quarter, the 20-year-old rookie grabbed a board and headed up the fast break. Kurucs tore down the floor until he spotted a teammate wide-open in the left corner for three. The…Read more...

The most useful takeaway from Washington’s 16-13 win over Jacksonville wasn’t that the Jaguars are in a very dark place right now, but that a quarterback like Josh Johnson, seven years removed from his last start, can still be successful in the NFL despite an extended layoff from football. Huh!Read more...

Sebastian Janikowski exists to blast long field goals and basically do nothing else. He’s also 40 years old. Sure, it would’ve been nice if he tried to tackle 49ers kick returner Richie James Jr. on this 97-yard touchdown, but that’s asking a lot.

Russell Westbrook needed 22 minutes to get on the board. It didn’t matter, because the Thunder have that other guy, too. Carrying the scoring load for Oklahoma City once again was Paul George, who went off for 33 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, with no turnovers. Behind another wild December night from the…Read more...

Bills rookie linebacker Tremaine Edmunds assisted in a stop at the line of scrimmage to force a fourth down and punt from the Lions in the first half today. His teammate Jerry Hughes also tried to help, but instead had his helmet stuck to the back of Edmunds’s jersey. Aw, they like each other.Read more...

A player on a successful team will sometimes be required to step up and go beyond their position’s normal responsibilities. For his part today, Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota tried his hand at becoming a crackback blocker.Read more...

Bears pass rusher Khalil Mack is almost impossible to stop with his left-arm move, but he introduced a new devastating technique in today’s game against the Packers: the butt sack.Read more...

At 33 years old, Alex Ovechkin is having the best season of his career. He leads the NHL in goals scored with 29 (six ahead of second-place Patrik Laine), and has 17 goals and six assists in his last 14 games, including a six-game goal streak. He also recently became the first player in 17 years to score consecutive…Read more...

Fighting a mascot is a bad idea—mascot’s advantages: padding, potential athleticism, people care about it more than you—and it becomes an even worse idea when the cameras are rolling. The Chicago Blackhawks’ Tommy Hawk scuffled with a fan after Friday night’s game, and he handled himself well.Read more...

LeBron James posted 24 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists, his second triple-double of the season, and then sat out the whole fourth quarter as the Lakers lashed the Hornets Saturday. As LeBron headed off the court to rest his bones, he took Lonzo Ball aside and told him to look up: the 21-year-old was just three…Read more...

As Stanford women’s volleyball players filed into the locker room following their title-winning, five-set victory over Nebraska Saturday, one well-placed photographer captured some mascot violence drawn on the Cardinal’s whiteboard. The @NCAAVolleyball account tweeted then deleted the photo, presumably after noticing…Read more...

The Cleveland Browns have not had a winning season since 2007. The closest they’ve been to .500 was a 7-9 campaign in 2014, and that becomes even sadder with the reminder that those Browns, under then-head coach Mike Pettine, had squandered a 7-4 start to get there. (He was fired after his second season when the team…Read more...

For a limited time, a bunch of Goodthreads and Buttoned Down clothes are on sale for about 20%-50% off. There are tons of fits and styles available from these Amazon brands, so surely you can upgrade to a few new pieces for the new year.Read more...

Hurdles are one of the most disrespectful ways someone can get past his opponent on the football field. The move not only makes for an incredible highlight, it also makes a defender look smaller and sillier than in most other evasive maneuvers. But hurdles also carry the risk making a ball carrier look like a child…Read more...

Thirty-year-old Swiss skier Mark Gisin was hospitalized on Saturday after losing control on the Saslong downhill course and crashing down the mountain during a World Cup downhill run. After multiple nasty bumps down the course, he laid motionless on the snow before medical personnel could get to him. He was ultimately…Read more...

Just two days removed from a 20-point loss to the Kawhi-less Toronto Raptors, the Golden State Warriors were looking for a bounce-back win against the up-and-coming Sacramento Kings. Thanks to the efforts of Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson—who combined for 95 points—they were able to fend off a late-game…Read more...

Well that didn’t take long.Read more...

An Instant Pot alternative, Anker projectors, and a board game sale lead off Saturday’s best deals.

I am, admittedly, not the typical source of NBA information at Deadspin, let alone in the sports journalism universe writ large. But it’s Friday, I live on the West Coast, I’m home sick with a sinus infection, and my husband is a huge Phoenix Suns fan. I’ve been hearing about this all night. Also, almost everyone else…Read more...

Most legends grow to become something beyond their actual size. That never seemed to be true of Bill Fralic, the former University of Pittsburgh and Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman, who died Thursday at the age of 56. He was as big as he was often described to be, and if you’re a certain age and you grew up in…Read more...

A wise merman once said: Moisture is the essence of wetness. And wetness is the essence of beauty. And he was right. I am obsessed with retaining water, but like, in a cute way (not a glandular way). So let’s talk about hydration. First, from the inside out: I understand the importance of drinking water and have seen…Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.Read more...

Markelle Fultz hasn’t played for the Sixers for almost a month, as he recovers from something called thoracic outlet syndrome and attempts to rebuild his broken confidence and broken jump shot. Teams are reportedly calling the Sixers with lowball offers, and now that he’s spending his second season the same way as his…Read more...

Eventually Dan Snyder is going to get around to demanding public money for a new stadium for his crappy team, and brother, when he gets there, it’s going to be huge. But between now and then he has to figure out which plot of land in which municipality will become the site of his obscene moat-encircled football…Read more...

Ring of Honor’s year-end pay-per-view event, Final Battle, will air live on Friday night from the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center in New York City. It’s become one of the biggest events in independent wrestling, but there’s more intrigue around it than usual this year, as it looks likely that several of…Read more...

You won’t know either of these schools, but man, this was fun. Down two points with 12.7 seconds left in overtime Wednesday against Bryant and Stratton, the Cazenovia Wildcats needed a miracle. First, Raishun Richardson nailed a reverse layup with 2.6 seconds left to tie the score at 112, then freshman Majesty…Read more...

The Bulls lost to the Magic in Mexico City Thursday night, in a game that was mostly uneventful, apart from leading scorer and leadership council member Zach LaVine hearing an ominous pop in his lower leg on a late drive. Some interesting news came after the game, when ESPN reported that Jabari Parker…Read more...

A discounted Sonos Beam, Sceptre TVs, and a reader favorite Global Chef’s Knife lead off Friday’s best deals.

Subject: It’s Pretty Messed Up That The Red Sox Might Be Shedding Payroll

Whether or not you’ll be home for Christmas, your house could still probably use an upgrade or two. Wayfair is making it easier than ever to redecorate your space this season with their 48-Hour Blowout sale. Take up to 75% off a range of home essentials, from mattresses and beddings basics to rugs and wall art. But as…Read more...

The tech world told a lot of lies in 2018, and it was caught in those lies at what feels like an unprecedented rate. Some Silicon Valley players even began to wake up to the lies they told themselves over the years. With such a flurry of falsehoods, it’s worth taking a look back to see who went big in the year that…Read more...

James Harden carried the sub-.500 Rockets to a much-needed win at home against the Lakers Thursday night, as Houston beat L.A. 126-111 in a game that was tight up until the last few minutes. It was a signature performance from Harden, who scored 50 points on 14-of-26 shooting and also picked up 11 assists and 10…Read more...

io9 Jason Momoa Has Even More to Say About Henry Cavill’s Superman Future | Kotaku Top Riot Executive Suspended Without Pay Following Investigation Over Workplace Misconduct | Jalopnik Germans Discover Military Jeep Hoods Used to Repair a Ceiling after World War II | Lifehacker What’s the Worst Advice You Hear All the…Read more...

In a just world, the Lightning and Maple Leafs would meet in the Eastern Conference final. But it is not a just world, and because the two clear best teams in the East also happen to be the two best teams in the Atlantic Division, the NHL’s playoff format puts the two on track for a second-round showdown. It’ll be…Read more...

Kershaw’s popular Leek knives are great general-purpose fold-out blades, and several different styles are on sale today in Amazon’s Gold Box. Prices start at just $24, but for $42, you can get the stunning Sandvik steel model, which is all matte black and impervious to fingerprints.