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What was set to be Serena Williams’s low-key but triumphant return to competitive tennis on Sunday, after more than a year away from the game, was instead a signal that the 36-year-old, 23-time Grand Slam winner is far from peak form. At least in matches that don’t matter.Read more...

The snowboarding women’s slopestyle final at this Olympics was a frustrating, unfair event, marked by high winds that cancelled the qualifying round and screwed with pretty much every competitor in the final. Still, despite the awful conditions that even cut down on the number of runs each woman could make (two…Read more...

American figure skater Adam Rippon, whose butt is real and whose whole vibe is spectacular, made his Olympic debut at age 28 last night. He’s a star now.

The extent of my understanding of competitive skating comes from the Fox Family channel film Ice Angel, in which a male hockey player dies and is reincarnated as a figure skater (played by The Nanny’s Nicholle Tom) who must win an Olympic gold medal, for some reason. Mostly, this film taught me that gender was not…Read more...

HOLY SHIT, DID YOU JUST SEE THAT???Read more...

Reuben Foster of the San Francisco 49ers has been arrested on charges related to domestic violence, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle . Foster was booked Sunday at the Santa Clara County jail and held on $75,000 bail, according to the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office.

Sunday’s result should not be read as the Celtics are fake or the Cavs are better than the Celtics or the Celtics are doomed in the playoffs, although I dearly wish for all three of those things to be true. But it seems reasonable to say that the Celtics, who’ve had the NBA’s best defense this season, present an…Read more...

Sunday’s big Cavs-Celtics tilt in Boston is not shaping up how you might’ve reasonably imagined: The Cavs, with four brand new guys making their first ever appearances in Cavs jerseys, are mostly giving the business to the Celtics. That business featured this highlight, when J.R. Smith smushed the bejeezus out of Aron…Read more...

Fresh off of being brutally rejected by Josh McDaniels, the Colts have pivoted to Super Bowl-winning Eagles offensive coordinator Frank Reich as their next head coach, replacing Chuck Pagano. Per Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, Reich will sign a five-year deal in Indianapolis.Read more...

25-year-old pitcher Mike Foltynewicz wrapped up his third season with the Braves having posted a 10-13 record with 4.79 ERA in 29 appearances. Because of the way the MLB collective bargaining agreement works, Foltynewicz is still a couple years away from real free agency, but, because he’s had at least three full…Read more...

Last night, Evgenia Medvedeva, a Russian figure skater expected to win the gold medal in the ladies singles event later in the Games, skated for the Russian team in the short program. Yes, Russian team. As the commentators noted during the first night of the team skating event, it’s easier to say “Russia” than…Read more...

Last night, Brian “Cosmos” Kalu won his first-ever trophy for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, and then almost lost it.Read more...

Old, old man Dirk Nowitzki had himself a bit of a throwback game against the Los Angeles Lakers Saturday night. In 24 minutes of action—just about all his body can handle, at this point—Nowitzki knocked home eight of 11 shot attempts, including all four of his looks from beyond the arc, to score 22 points and lead the…Read more...

Saturday night, with the Bulls hosting the Wizards, teammate puncher Bobby Portis sent not one but both available Wizards point guards to the locker room with bloody head wounds. Clearly, clearly, this is part of the grand conspiracy to bring Derrick Rose to the Washington Wizards.Read more...

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The period of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, from 1910 until 1945, was characterized by executions, forced labor, systematic rape of so-called “comfort women,” and other human rights atrocities. Japan’s whitewashing of this time period in their history books today is a continued source of…Read more...

The Walleye no longer play at the Toledo Sports Arena, but the ECHL action tonight brought back memories of that smoke-filled brawlatorium as tonight’s game against the Kansas City Mavericks got feisty in the third period:Read more...

For exclusive videos, pictures, and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your confidential tips at tips@deadspin.com, call our confidential tips hotline at (347) 746-8471, contact our writers directly, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system.Read more...

Red Gerard, who was born in freaking 2000, claimed the first medal for the U.S. at these Pyeongchang Games by winning men’s slopestyle with a perfect final run that launched him past some of the event’s favorites.Read more...

CBC snowboarding analyst Craig McMorris was pretty pleased with Seppe Smits scoring a 69 during today’s slopestyle final.Read more...

The second of today’s matches would determine who would continue on to tonight’s playoffs, so of course, it went the distance. The Houston Outlaws and the Boston Uprising seemed to match each other blow-for-blow, all the way to map five, round three, each determined to shape the playoffs to come.Read more...

Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the Wizards are expected to sniff around Derrick Rose, now that he has been waived by the Utah Jazz. In a closely related story, I am going to be sick.

Fifth-ranked Xavier avoided its fourth loss of the season thanks to a fortuitous foul call with less than a second remaining, just moments after fouling a Creighton three-point attempt that gave the Bluejays a very short-lived lead.Read more...

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Even with more than two hours left before the puck was scheduled to drop between the Koreans and their heavily favored Swiss opponents, a taxicab couldn’t get anywhere near the arena. I’d assumed, and planned for, the first game featuring a joint team of players from both North and South Korea…Read more...

Hey, would you look at that! A good baseball player has signed a free agent contract with a good baseball team! So it’s not impossible!Read more...

What the hell am I even reading right now?Read more...

Despite being one of the most dominant individual athletes in the history of college sports, Edward Cheserek only managed to break one collegiate record in his four years at Oregon: the indoor mile, where he ran a scintillating 3:52.01 last winter to not only set an NCAA standard but a new Kenyan one. Whenever you…Read more...

Earlier this week, Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn made StarCraft history at IEM Pyeongchang 2018, defeating two-time world champion sOs. Last night, she chalked up more wins against the world’s best. Scarlett is shaking up the modern StarCraft scene one game at a time, and shows no sign of slowing down.Read more...

Damian Lillard went absolutely nuts on the Kings Friday night, in Sacramento, to the tune of 50 points on 26 shots attempts, in just 29 minutes. He didn’t score a single point in the fourth quarter, and didn’t need to, because the Kings are sad and awful, and also because the game was never close after Lillard ended…Read more...

The United States Soccer Federation voted Saturday to name vice president Carlos Cordeiro its new president. Cordeiro succeeds Sunil Gulati, who announced he would not run for reelection after the USMNT’s brutal, humiliating failure in World Cup qualifying.Read more...

The Cavs did well at the trade deadline, shipping off several of their worst defensive players and returning a group of guys who seem better suited to playing alongside LeBron, for however long he’ll be around. LeBron himself said the changes “should be fun,” which probably means nothing but certainly is better…Read more...

There is, apparently, a line that can be crossed at oft-offensive Boston sports radio shithole WEEI, as the station suspended host Christian Fauria five days for his racist impression of NFL agent Don Yee on Friday’s show.Read more...

NBC’s tape-delayed Olympic opening ceremony broadcast, as usual, didn’t manage to air the entire event. While the Peacock Network continues to improve upon previous years’ heavy hand in editing, they still sliced off 23 minutes in the 14 hours that passed before it finally hit NBC’s airwaves. Here’s a breakdown of…Read more...

Organizers in Pyeongchang report 11 new cases of norovirus have been confirmed at the Games. That brings the total of people at the Olympics suffering from the highly contagious diarrhea-and-vomiting disease up to 139.Read more...

Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors published an essay on her personal website today detailing what she calls her “extensive, abusive, and incredibly manipulative relationship” with her ex-coach, Sean Hutchison. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security searched Hutchison’s home earlier this week…Read more...

On today’s edition of WEEI’s Ordway, Merloni & Fauria, the fellas discussed how Boston Herald columnist Ron Borges was pranked by a guy pretending to be NFL agent Don Yee, who represents quarterbacks Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo. The prankster fooled Borges into writing an inaccurate story through a series of text…Read more...

Last November, Michael Porter Jr., Mizzou freshman and one-time favorite to become the top pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, was forced to undergo surgery on his back. He played just two minutes of college ball, and at the time, it seemed that he would miss the rest of the season recovering from the injury.

Anyone with half a brain could recognize that Bruce Arena’s second tenure as USMNT coach was a monumental failure of historic proportions for which he deserved to be exiled to Soccer Siberia and never heard from again. Ditto for U.S. Soccer’s broader complicity in allowing the men’s national team to realize its…Read more...

Three days ago, before Duke poo-poo’d all over itself during a ghastly second half and gave the folks in Chapel Hill something to be happy about, Joel Berry II did what every single Tar Heel fan does before each of the annual clashes between N.C. State and UNC. Yes, he denied that the Wolfpack and Tar Heels have a…Read more...

The Philly Special will rightly be the play that forever defines the Eagles’ victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl 52. But such ballsy trickery wasn’t some one-off bit of well-executed brilliance: The Eagles rolled up 538 yards and scored 41 points on the Pats, and they did it by doing a lot of things the Patriots…Read more...

Let’s be honest, our pets are the best and we don’t deserve them. So, you might as well further spoil your 4-legged valentine and buy a bunch of treats and food from Jet.com. It’s all 30% off with code FEBRUARYFINDS, so you can really stock up.

No personnel move is more emblematic of the reliably baffling Vlade Divac administration in Sacramento than the team’s selection of unknown Greek center Georgios Papagiannis with the 13th pick of the 2016 draft. Sacramento traded back from the eighth spot in that draft and smartly snared peppy Serbian perimeter dude…Read more...

After a season cut short by Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico came from behind to defeat the Dominican Republic last night, 9-4, and win the Caribbean Series.Read more...

Everybody knows the downhill is the best Winter Olympics event. The speed! The danger! The mind-boggling athleticism of the participants! The weird cowbell! I love it so much. If there were a downhill skiing network in my cable package, I would watch it for hours every day. I cannot get enough of the stuff.Read more...

Unless you live in Ruston, La., chances are the name Jacobi Boykins won’t ring a bell. That’s a shame, because the senior Louisiana Tech guard is and has been a great watch during his four years with the Bulldogs, albeit one sequestered to Conference USA games. He’s the best three-point shooter on a team that loves to…Read more...

Welcome back to Dead Letters, the feature in which we reprint our favorite reader mail. We should take this moment to remind you that all emails to Deadspin and its editors and writers are on the record unless otherwise specified. Now for your letters.

REI is about to make you that more inclined to get outside. Right now, you can grab up to 50% off gear from Patagonia, Marmot Sorel, REI C-Op, and more during their Winter Clearance. There’s everything from camping, to paddling, to hiking, to cycling, and everything in between. It’ll take some time to sort through…Read more...

Lionel Messi is so incomprehensibly great because he has an almost unlimited arsenal of match-deciding, soul-snatching, title-winning skills and attributes—so many, in fact, that some of them threaten to go under-appreciated. Perfect example: some of his deceptively simple but actually staggeringly effective moves in…Read more...

Turn your TV dial to the Yankees’ YES network next Wednesday, and instead of finding a documentary about Mickey Mantle or a replay of the 1998 World Series, you might end up watching a match of H1Z1 or League of Legends. It’s not just an offseason thing, either—the New York Yankees, baseball’s most storied franchise,…Read more...