Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

The week of UFC 268, ESPN’s Max Kellerman interviewed UFC Welterweight champion Kamaru Usman to preview his then-upcoming championship defense against Colby Covington — whom he beat for the second time on Saturday — but then Kellerman asked Usman what was next after UFC 268. Kellerman made logical suggestions, trying…Read more...

Saying Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes are outperforming Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green is accurate. That also makes it seem like Cunningham and Green were somehow mistakes. To be clear, none of the top four picks in the 2021 NBA Draft look like misses, which is awesome for the Pistons, Rockets, Cavs and Raptors.

I suppose one of the less heralded benefits of being ungodly rich is that no one is going to tell you you’re not funny and you’re killing Fozzy Bear. Isn’t that how we ended up with John Mulaney?

The 2019-20 NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers were a much deeper team than just two stars, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Danny Green, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Rajon Rondo, and Alex Caruso were all key contributors on a team that finished the regular season 11th in offensive rating and third in defensive rating. Over…Read more...

Believe it or not, the Washington Wizards are in a three-way tie for the top spot in the Eastern Conference 10 games into the season. Washington is flying under the radar at 7-3, while teams like the Bulls and Heat get everyone’s attention for improving their rosters in the offseason. But the Wizards are saying, “Hold…Read more...

How does the saying go? If you don’t know history, you’re bound to hire a couple goons to take a tire iron to your competition?

College basketball is back in all its upset-heavy glory. Opening night saw No. 17 Ohio State coming THIS close to dropping one to Akron, Navy beating No. 25 Virginia out of nowhere, and a fun Top-10 matchup between No. 10 Kentucky and No. 9 Duke kicking off the biggest story of this season:

Despite being only 29 years old, based on his statistics and games missed due to injuries the past few seasons,Odell Beckham Jr. could be in the twilight of his career. Through six games this season, OBJ is averaging the fewest yards per game, fewest receptions per game, lowest catch rate, fewest yards per target, and…Read more...

Talk of unionizing professional wrestling pops up at least once a year, with it usually coming on the heels of another needless round of WWE releases due to “budget cuts” like my colleague Sam Fels wrote about regarding their most recent cuts last week.

It was no brainer that Cole Anthony would be a top NBA draft pick one day. He was the starting point guard his first day at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, N.Y., a feat that legendary point guards Kenny Smith and Kenny Anderson didn’t reach. Anthony was the No. 1 point guard prospect in America in 2019 and he…Read more...

I know, I know. There’s nothing MLS fans hate more than someone who doesn’t watch as regularly as they do telling them what’s wrong with their league. Even with my expanded efforts to watch, understand, and develop an attachment to our domestic league, I’m still a long way off from being a tried and true “MLS fan.”…Read more...

You can’t make this sh*t up.

The second set of College Football Playoff rankings was released last night, much to the dismay of anyone who really still thought the playoff committee wasn’t microdosing quaaludes every Saturday before turning on the television. For those of you out there thinking, you just complained about this last week! Are you…Read more...

Many people, including myself, find it strange that Kevin Durant likes to engage with people on social media, specifically people who make negative comments.

On Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys laid an egg so big that it looks like the inexplicable and yearly Dak Prescott MVP discussion has gone away... for now.

Mets team president Sandy Alderson offered up a Michael Scott-ism on Tuesday to explain why his team hasn’t been able to hire a general manager yet, saying their greatest strength — massive market — also is their greatest weakness.

In 2013, Tottenham Hotspur hired a new manager with some unconventional training methods. He introduced NFL-style tackling, encouraged players who kicked the ball over the goal, danced the robot, and asked his players for “60% effort, 1000% of the time.”

It’ll be another banner day for the NHL when whatever story is waiting about Anaheim GM and president Bob Murray drops.

It was a fine display yesterday of the cycle of white people who have never been told they’re wrong for various reasons.

Who doesn’t like earning money, huh? Everyone does. That’s why we all can use some friendly betting advice from time to time. To that end, if you’re looking just to do straight bets, there’s a new trend in NFL betting that’s been incredibly positive for some people.Read more...

Stephen Curry had one of those nights on Monday inside Chase Center against the Atlanta Hawks. You know, one of those nights where you start off hot and just get hotter as the game flows along until you look up and you’ve dropped 50 on fools. Yeah, me neither. But that’s precisely the kind of night Curry had against…Read more...

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ESPN did it again on Monday night: They went too far with the tragedy/trauma porn.

Outside of Ohio State, it’s hard to definitively say what’s real and what’s Iowa in the Big 10. The conference has had six teams ranked in the top 10 — Penn State twice, Iowa twice, Michigan and Michigan State — lose over the past five weeks. Two of those six upsets have come at (and due to) the hands of David Bell…Read more...

Everybody hates punting. I know there’s a big movement to give punters the respect they deserve, and yes, punters are people, but you can’t deny that punting is the worst part of football. When the most exciting part of a punt is how favorably/unfavorably it bounces, you know it’s not an exciting part of the game.…Read more...

Every now and again in life, you just have to fight back and say “enough is enough.” Reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokić had a come-to-Jesus moment Monday night when he shoulder tackled Markieff Morris of the Miami Heat.

It’s not 1971, it’s not 1983, it’s not 1995, it’s not even 2001, but Nebraska it can’t be like this. They haven’t finished a season at or above .500 since 2016. Since Scott Frost became coach in 2018, they’ve finished with a winning percentage better than .400 once. Nebraska is making some changes, many in fact, but…Read more...

If it feels like I come here every four to six weeks or so to bemoan WWE’s latest release and wonder how they could waste such a talent so thoroughly that they’re simply discarded like the recycling, it’s kind of because I do. We could do this all day, and by now you probably already have your own list of wrestlers…Read more...

Villanova is a better basketball program than Michigan State. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The Wildcats have more program wins and national titles than the Spartans.

It was comeback city in Chicago last night, as the Bulls and the Bears both mounted fourth quarter efforts against their respective opponents, to — ahem — varied success.

Aaron Rodgers has turned himself into the latest iteration of Rudy Gobert, the guy who fucked around and found out when it came to COVID-19 protocols. Rodgers’ lies throughout his coronavirus saga have made him a rightful target of scorn from everyone who has actually taken this pandemic seriously — including a couple…Read more...

Generally, I think it’s loser shit to blame the refs or bad calls for a loss. There’s almost always a chance to overcome them, and either you’re good enough or you’re not. I’m not even salty as a Bears fan about losing to the Steelers, 29-27, due to a couple of horrible calls, because in the grand scheme of things the…Read more...

We’ve reached the midway point of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks are always front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 9.

It was there at Soldier Field last Sunday. It didn’t result in a win, but it was there. The electricity, the oohs, the aahs, the dazzling, the breathtaking type of football that Bears fans have been clawing at their walls waiting to see from quarterback Justin Fields.

The Russell Westbrook experiment in Los Angeles has not clicked yet, and I don’t know if it ever will. LeBron James missing games with an injury doesn’t help, but things were scary even when he was playing. Acquiring Westbrook was a LeBron decision, made in place of trading for a much better shooter in Buddy Hield…Read more...

You probably don’t remember Dan O’Toole and Jay Onrait. They were the Canadian SportsCentre guys (yes, the e goes there up north) that Fox Sports brought in to host its competitor to SportsCenter (with the e where it belongs down here) when FS1 launched. You don’t remember the former, because no one watched it, which…Read more...

The NFL had a case of the upsets in Week 9. Some teams were dealing with extenuating circumstances, such as the Green Bay Packers without MVP quarterback Aaron “I discount double-checked the coronavirus myself” Rodgers and the New Orleans Saints trying to get quarterback Trevor Siemian to play like it’s Week 3 in 2016…Read more...

Welp, here we go again with Matthew Stafford. It must be extremely tough to be a fan of Stafford. Just when you think he’s rolling along and nothing can stop him, Stafford lays a giant egg in a game that he should win. It almost sounds like being a Dallas Cowboys fan. So, I get it.

While Manchester United have done their best to make sure the Premier League doesn’t become completely stratified into just a “top four and everyone else,” and Arsenal and Tottenham have made the idea of a “Big Six” laughable, that only works if there are other teams willing to crash through the door left so…Read more...

Mark Cuban saw it coming. Adam Silver did not.Read more...

On Sunday, ahead of noon kickoff across the country, FOX analyst Terry Bradshaw let Aaron Rodgers have it for lying about being vaccinated for COVID back in August.Read more...

MLS had its “Decision Day” yesterday, the last day of the regular season when all of its playoff spots get shaken out. The permutation for the top, middle, and bottom of the playoff picture were David Lynch-level convoluted, so sometimes it’s best to express the happenings in one highlight:

It was qualifying-offer season over the weekend for MLB teams. Maybe the most interesting name to not get a qualifying offer, meaning he could sign anywhere without draft-pick compensation, was only the best pitcher of his generation in Clayton Kershaw.

The NFL season is halfway done, and now we know who the contenders are and the teams we can write off as pretenders. We can talk about the contenders another time because this list is about those less fortunate teams in the league. Now it’s time to check out the worst of the worst from Week 9.

The start of the season hasn’t been the NBA 2K simulation that most thought it would be for the Brooklyn Nets, but James Harden had himself a moment over the weekend that sums up the Nets’ slow start this year.Read more...

Some Minnesota Vikings players gave their front office a little elbow nudge to make a roster move this week. Wide receiver Justin Jefferson and cornerback Cam Dantzier both played their college football at LSU and made their pitch for another former Tiger to become a member of the team — Odell Beckham Jr.

Canelo Álvarez not only fulfilled his promise of becoming the first undisputed 168-pound super middleweight champion in boxing Saturday night, but Canelo also inflicted the pain and damage on Caleb Plant he promised before the fight.

Yeah, so I did write this last year. The Reds only ended up moving Raisel Iglesias, and you can always fashion a bullpen out of the leftovers, scraps, and spare duct tape you have laying around if you’re determined enough. The Reds didn’t move anything else, and were competitive until the season’s final throes.…Read more...

Oof, a rare goose egg came out of last week’s action, though to be fair, that was easily one of the most bizarre football slates any of us had ever seen. When something like Mike White beating the surging Bengals outright to sink our teaser happens, just try to laugh and move on.Read more...

Finally, something interesting about Northwestern football.Read more...