Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

LONDON — “We have nothing against FIFA,” CONIFA General Secretary Sascha Düerkop told a tittering press corps on Wednesday. We were all sitting in the basement of a student accommodation block in North London. “They are very great to learn how not to do things.”Read more...

George Prokos, the vice president who oversaw the Dallas Mavericks’ ticket sales department—where ex-employees said their boss routinely screamed at and intimidated them, little was done to help a coworker in what appeared to be an abusive relationship with another team employee, and one employee became known as…Read more...

An NBA Finals game featuring Nick Young, J.R. Smith, and JaVale McGee was always bound to be full of goofs and gaffes, and while everyone is justifiably mocking Smith for forgetting how time and numbers work, let us not forget that McGee had perhaps an even funnier botched play in the third quarter.

Today is Sixers GM Bryan Colangelo’s 53rd birthday, and also possibly his final day of running the team’s post-Process regime in the wake of a Ringer report that Colangelo or someone very close to him ran up to five anonymous Twitter accounts dedicated to defending Colangelo and attacking his numerous apparent…Read more...

Unsealed court papers claim Peyton Manning’s lawyers “confirmed much of what” a source told Al Jazeera about the retired NFL quarterback’s alleged PED usage along with that of MLBers Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard, who are suing the network over claims made in the 2015 report.Read more...

Ottawa Senators assistant GM Randy Lee was arrested Thursday night in Buffalo for allegedly harassing a bus driver. The Associated Press first reported his arrest.Read more...

Here’s an interesting item about the NFLPA tucked deep into Albert Breer’s latest weekly column over at Sports Illustrated:Read more...

The Pro Evolution Soccer series used to be top dog until it was supplanted by the flashier, better licensed FIFA games. Today, PES suffered another blow, with publisher Konami announcing the German club Borussia Dortmund terminated its licensing agreement a year ahead of schedule, meaning the top-tier Bundesliga team…Read more...

Here’s some nice news: White Sox reliever Danny Farquhar, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in the dugout during an April game, gave his first interview since returning home from the hospital. He sat down with Good Morning America on Friday to talk about his recovery for the first time, and while it’s heartening to see…Read more...

J.R. Smith’s inexplicable game-ending dribbling demo is and should be the thing fans remember about Game 1 of these short-looking 2018 NBA Finals, but lost in all the hubbub around Smith’s all-time brain fart is that the Cavs absolutely should have won a road game against a Warriors team that really played well. The…Read more...

During his third-round French Open match today against Alexander Zverev, Bosnian tennis player Damir Džumhur inadvertently wrecked a ball kid as he tried to catch an errant shot out of the air. The boy was shaken up, and Džumhur tried to comfort him with hugs, which was somehow even more awkward than when he just…Read more...

Modern roller derby is a women-dominated sport that was created by and for, and still is run by women—one of few (if not only) sports that can claim this. It’s synonymous with women’s empowerment in the minds of many, and it promotes itself as an inclusive, safe space where women find and take pride in their inner…Read more...

Draymond Green burst some blood vessels in LeBron James’s left eye while barely making a play on the ball, causing it to glow red for the rest of the night. Draymond Green walked to the bench and called James a “fucking pussy.”

Call of Duty World League matches move fast, especially in a mode like Hardpoint, which involves instantaneous respawns for both teams. With waves of enemies pouring at each other in constant droves, it’s easy to blow past the more impressive shots that pros pull off—like wall bangs, which require some ingenuity and…Read more...

The predicted unraveling of Baltimore’s prep football scene appears to indeed be underway. Another scheduled opponent bailed on playing the city’s burgeoning national gridiron powerhouse, St. Frances Academy, as accusations of cheating, cowardice and racism were flying all over town. All because St. Frances got too…Read more...

LeBron James abruptly exited his postgame press conference last night after ESPN’s Mark Schwarz asked repeatedly about J.R. Smith’s fascinatingly awful play at the end of regulation in Game 1 of the Finals. It’s hard to look appropriately mad in suit shorts.Read more...

You can’t really know what your life’s great work will be when you begin it. Our days are full to overfull with work, but so little of that feels important. This is not to say that all of it is bullshit, although for most everyone some significant portion of it is invariably bullshit. It’s just that, when you pick up…Read more...

The challenge is to leave aside, even if just for a second, the question of whether it actually, truly was a charge or a block.

Start your Friday with 40% off pet food for Prime members, a white noise machine, a Qi charging car mount, and more great deals.Read more...

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I can’t know this, but I know it: LeBron James would’ve hit the buzzer-beater.Read more...

If you’ve got Prime and a pet, here’s your no-brainer deal of the day. For a limited time, Prime members who use Subscribe & Save to order pretty much any kind of pet food that Amazon sells will get a whopping 40% off your their delivery. After your first order ships, you can always cancel the subscription, so there’s…Read more...

A good oscillating tool can help you with cutting and sanding projects around the house, and if you don’t already own one, today’s the day to fix that.

J.R. Smith’s end-of-regulation blunder sparked a meme-worthy reaction from LeBron James, a harsh rebuke from the Cavaliers’ Spanish-language radio announcers, and left several other broadcasters baffled or even, themselves, believing Cleveland had won the game (that’s ESPN Radio’s Marc Kestecher with the complete…Read more...

LeBron James turned in a heroic, 51-point performance in what came so close to becoming an incredible Game 1 victory for the Cavs. Instead, this might have been the worst night of LeBron’s basketball-playing life, with multiple tortuous twists combining for a nightmare loss.Read more...

In a neck-and-neck Game 1, it looked multiple times like the Cavs were going to steal a win on the road against the Warriors. After heading into the half all tied at 56, then weathering the Warriors’ trademark third-quarter onslaught, LeBron James gave his team the lead with under a minute to play on a sheer…Read more...

Legendary fuckup J.R. Smith is doing his best to please audiences tonight, as the Cavs veteran dribbled out the clock instead of using his rebound of a missed George Hill free throw to score a would-be game-winner. Great work all around, everyone, and don’t forget that LeBron James led this team to the NBA Finals.Read more...

Clayton Kershaw pitched for the first time since May 1 tonight against the Phillies, and at a glance, he looked alright. After sitting on the DL for a month with a left bicep* injury, the Dodger ace went for five innings of work and got five strikeouts, with the only run scoring on a play where Maikel Franco didn’t…Read more...

Washington president of business operations Dennis Greene has resigned in the aftermath of a New York Times report detailing a disturbing trip to Costa Rica made by the team’s cheerleaders for a photo shoot, where they were told to serve as escorts for sponsors.Read more...

Warriors guard Klay Thompson had to leave Game 1 of the NBA Finals with an apparent left leg injury after an accidental collision with the Cavs’ J.R. Smith. Smith slipped as he was going for a steal, and in doing so took out Thompson’s legs. Doris Burke reported on the ABC broadcast that Thompson has a left lateral…Read more...

Starting on Tuesday, June 5, Delaware will become the first state to allow betting on sports since the Supreme Court overturned the federal anti-sports gambling law earlier in May. Betting will be run by the Delaware Lottery, and it will be open at all of the state’s three casinos.Read more...

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The Phillie Phanatic, the Philadelphia Phillies’ (baseball) mascot, is six feet, six inches and 300 pounds of “mostly fat,” covered in green fur. According to his official biography, he has “clumsy feet, extra long beak, extra-long curled up tongue, gawking neck, and ‘slight’ case of body odor.” On Thursday, Jezebel…Read more...

Don Cherry’s entire shtick is being an ostentatious hockey blowhard, and while his daily lunch is a little “out there,” its bizarreness isn’t whimsical in the slightest, although biohazards can be colorful, too. This Steve Simmons Toronto Sun column reveals Cherry’s regular lunch, which appears to be unintentionally…Read more...

Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue spoke to ESPN today ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals and detailed what made him step away from the team for two weeks in March. Lue said that before he took his break, he was coughing up blood, suffering from chest pains, and suffering from a lack of sleep. He struggled to coach the Cavs in…Read more...

Momentum shifts in tennis are common, often slight, and always tenuous. Good tennis players capitalize on these tiny shifts—an unlucky bounce, an untimely double fault, a net cord. Great players, though, force the change themselves. That’s what Serena Williams did in her second-round French Open match against…Read more...

Yes, yes, we updated the rosters and are simulating tonight’s NBA Finals Game 1 between the Cavaliers and Warriors, LIVE:Read more...

In the mother of all mic drops, Zinedine Zidane called a snap press conference today and announced that he was quitting his post as manager of Real Madrid, mere days after winning his record-setting third Champions League trophy in a row. It was the perfect cap to a perfect marriage of coach and club.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll had a few really good motivational anecdotes, and then he ran out of them and his players stopped listening to him. Carroll truthered the 9/11 attacks to a four-star general. Carroll’s players started to wonder if he was maybe more Chauncey Gardiner than actual genius when he decided not to…Read more...

Before she was Doris Burke, widely beloved NBA analyst for ESPN and ABC, she was Doris Sable, menace in transition with an extremely tight handle.Read more...

College baseball writers better be prepared to be succinct as hell for the next four weeks.

Jaelene Hinkle is a 25-year-old American soccer player who currently plays for the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage. Last June, the defender was named to the USWNT’s roster to play in a couple friendlies, but refused the call-up, citing “personal reasons.” In a recent interview, the devout Christian athlete explained…Read more...

Well hello there, casual basketball viewer. No, you have not accidentally clicked on an extremely old Deadspin post—the Golden State Warriors really are hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight, the fourth straight year they’ve done exactly that. Are you excited? No? Not excited at all? In…Read more...

Yes, it was the Orioles, and yes, there are only a limited number of ways to talk about this sort of thing, but Max Scherzer surgically picked apart a lineup so thoroughly that it almost doesn’t matter that the lineup was one of the league’s worst. The Nationals beat the Orioles 2-0 Wednesday night, on the back of…Read more...

After Auburn and the NCAA caught some flak for dropping a roster spot for football walk-on C.J. Harris, head coach Guz Malzahn addressed the matter briefly and claimed Harris did not receive medical clearance.Read more...

A minor league baseball team in Amarillo, Texas is selecting a new name among five candidates. Local news outlet Myhighplains.com noted that the choices “all sound like the makings of a popular country song.” Yes, but only if that song were about doing a doo-doo, because that’s what these options call to mind. These…Read more...

Can too much charity be a bad thing? The Baltimore prep sports scene seems to be on the verge of unraveling with the emergence of a parochial powerhouse, funded by a head coach with apparently massive financial means and the desire to make schoolboy football the focus of his philanthropy.Read more...

The Pirates made it seem like they had moved past Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo’s “illegal but not dirty” slide into catcher Elias Diaz in Monday’s game, but in the third inning last night Joe Musgrove put the beef in the microwave for about 30 seconds. The Pittsburgh pitcher slid hard into Chicago infielder Javier…Read more...

During this week, which is only about half over, some extremely overstated acts of Twitter-based idiocy have already led to the cancellation of ABC’s hit reboot of Roseanne, thanks to the latest extremely racist flare-up of star Roseanne Barr’s longstanding and apparently incurable case of Internet Brain. Some…Read more...

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