Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

I’m used to things turning ugly when the St. Louis Blues are involved. It’s St. Louis, after all. The NHL must be praying that the Avalanche punt them into space in Game 5 so they can continue to pretty much ignore everything that’s gone on here. It’s what the league does best, considering that David Perron got all of…Read more...

Two teams who had top four picks in the 2022 NFL Draft and still have long histories of imbecilic incompetence are getting loads of love for their offseasons. If you listen to the way some media personalities present it, the Detroit Lions and New York Jets have a chance to not send their fans into a tailspin a month…Read more...

When I wrote the Dallas Mavericks were a mess earlier this season, it was right after they traded one terrible contract in Kristaps Porziņģis for two terrible contracts in Spencer Dwindiddle and Davis Bertans. My argument was not that the Mavs had made the wrong move in ditching the Latvian bum. Nor was it an…Read more...

This week, the NFL’s spring meetings are happening in the same city — Atlanta — in which the league tried to throw a sham of a “workout” for Colin Kaepernick just three years ago.

At the top, this isn’t some kudos party for how Nazem Kadri reacted to the racist threats he received from Blues fans after Game 3. This is just about his response on the ice, and we’ll get to some deadbrained hockey reaction to the more serious stuff in a second.Read more...

HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” covering the preseason and training camps, can step aside as HBO’s premier network docuseries. “Hard Knocks In Season” is where the true drama lies. In training camp, everyone is upbeat and pollyannaish. Emotions are more volatile during the season when expectations ram into reality, and reality…Read more...

The Dallas Mavericks theme song should be Drake’s “In My Feelings” for the remainder of the playoffs. That is, because head coach Jason Kidd is all in his feelings over the team being (repeatedly) fined for bench violations. Kidd’s team has been hit three times by league authorities during this postseason, with each…Read more...

The fallout from Sasha Banks and Naomi walking out of WWE Raw continued over the weekend. With this drip-fed style of news, the overall feeling is still that there’s something much bigger floating beneath the surface and has been there a while, and it may be some time, if ever, that we get to the real meat of the…Read more...

They’re talking about it. I guess that’s the best we can expect from the apex predator capitalist group known as the NFL team owners.Read more...

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“You know… I don’t know, to be honest.”Read more...

On the cusp of returning to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2019, Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors find themselves in prime position to silence critics. With a 3-0 lead, the Warriors are all but guaranteed to have a spot saved for them on June 2 when the Finals begin. Winning a fourth championship…Read more...

The Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher feud is a microcosm of the two schools of thought in college football right now. Texas A&M beat Alabama for the top recruiting class in the nation this year and one coach, Saban, was none too pleased, saying, “A&M bought every player on their team.”

Let’s be fair, it isn’t much of a sacrifice or even a hard choice to make more money than a lot of countries’ GDP and live in Paris. It’s a pretty sweet deal, and something 95 percent of the world would opt for (with the other five percent either already living there, making millions somewhere better, or…Read more...

Entering this series, Luka Dončić’s heft, weight and skill were expected to overwhelm Andrew Wiggins. Instead, Wiggins’ capstone moment in his jewel of a playoff series came during Golden State’s 109-100 victory at the expense of the 23-year-old Dončić.

The narrative, the easiest one to reach for which is generally what most hockey observers want to do before hitting the bar, is the two-time defending champ Tampa Bay Lightning must be playing great defense because the Florida Panthers have scored just three goals in three games. And while that’s not wildly off the…Read more...

It’s nice to have the Dallas Mavericks in the postseason for an extended period of time. They have a good crowd and one of the best young players in the league. But regardless of whether it’s Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley, or Luka Dončić leading the team on the floor, since the turn of the millennium the constant…Read more...

If there are any Mavericks/Liverpool fans out there, our heart goes out to you (though the Mavs have been nearly untouchable at home, so there may still be some salvation for them). Both of those teams were or are being asked to stand in front of a bus with no brakes and tasked with getting it to stop. There simply is…Read more...

Robert Williams III is going to feel pressure — much of it from himself — to get back on the court for Game 4 against the Miami Heat. The Boston Celtics lost at home on Saturday and surely do not want to go down 3-1 heading back to Miami. Kyle Lowry returned to the floor for the Heat in Game 3 and he played better…Read more...

The Miami Heat resemble a team that won on the scorecard instead of the scoreboard. In the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals cage match, the Celtics have a few lumps on their skulls.Read more...

In the age of social media, there are some things you just shouldn’t say aloud (or in writing), and certain celebrities and athletes you want to steer clear of when it comes to particular commentary. Golden State Warriors beat reporter Mark Haynes found this out the hard way Saturday night, after answering a question…Read more...

Our media apparatus remains completely unprepared to deal with the challenges it faces, out of fear that calling things what they are — telling the truth — will be too controversial and cause a backlash.Read more...

WWE just made things worse with Sasha Banks and Naomi. Much worse. What were the options considered by Vince McMahon and discarded? I can’t think of how Friday’s actions on Smackdown! make things any more amicable after two of the company’s standout performers walked out, due to bad creative plans, earlier this week.

Cue the “old man yells at cloud” Simpsons headline — Hall of Fame coach Bud Grant, who turned 95 yesterday, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he thinks the “boring” parts of football, including fair catches, kneels to end the game, and touchbacks, should be removed from the game. Now, to you and I, those things…Read more...

The road to the College Football Playoff got more direct Wednesday with an announcement from the NCAA that conferences with at least 12 members were no longer required to decide their football champions by splitting its league into two divisions and the winners compete in a conference championship game.

Roger Angell loved baseball in its purest form. Throughout over half a century of covering the sport for ‘The New Yorker’, Angell saw the game dip, duck, dive, and dodge its way through rule changes, scandals, and fundamental changes, yet his love for America’s pastime never faded.Read more...

It’s tempting to try to glean some kind of lesson from big games. We all try to do it, all the time, just as fans. The playoffs are not all that different from the final few episodes of a prestige television series’ season. You know there’s not much left, and you’re looking for any clues you can get about how it’s…Read more...

Everyone has had that coworker who kind of sucks but is really good at his job so the manager looks the other way when Glen takes 20 minute out of the weekly staff meeting to brag about his weekend jet skiing. Yeah, he’s annoying, but holy shit can he sell the hell out of reasonably priced Kias. Dwight Howard was the…Read more...

Twenty-one cigarettes, 12 Diet Cokes, six packs of peanut M&Ms, and zero ounces of water — that was the John Daly special at a full 18-hole practice round during the Wyndham Championship in 2008, per a CBS Sports reporter reminiscing on a weird and wild summer day. And in true John Daly spirit, the 56-year-old has…Read more...

When news first broke that Russell Wilson had been traded to the Denver Broncos, Seahawks fans were sad to see their franchise QB sent away but were also optimistic about the return. I mean, two first-round picks and two second-round picks is a lot. Plus, Shelby Harris ain’t bad. Yeah, and you know, that Noah Fant…Read more...

Now that the tornado of dust whipped up by that Jimbo Fisher press conference has somewhat settled (don’t worry, there’s still plenty of other kinds of dust still floating around), the reality of what just happened is setting in. As thrilling as it was to watch adult men worth millions get up in front of a camera and…Read more...

We’ve all done it the past couple days. Even though it’s pretty much impossible, we’ve all dreamed of WWE executives losing their minds, or Sasha Banks finding some loophole in her contract, and somehow instantly getting out of it. And then at Double Or Nothing, Thunder Rosa successfully defends her women’s title in a…Read more...

Every bad call for one team is a great call for the opposing team. That’s why fans always get upset when umpires make bad calls against their team, but stay silent when the same is done against the opposition. Players act the same way. That’s what made Anthony Rizzo’s ejection in Thursday’s game against Baltimore all…Read more...

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Can you imagine signing a $597,000 contract to play in the New York Yankees minor league system right out of college, only to ruin it all by scamming fans and stealing bats, gloves and equipment? Jake Sanford, the Yankees third-round pick in 2019, was cut by the club on May 12 for multiple infractions, including…Read more...

Football has seen many evolutions in its time, and a kid in Nebraska may be introducing the next one to the game. Mikey Gow (class of 2025), Bellevue East QB in Bellevue, NE, started on varsity as a 14-year-old freshman last season and can throw the ball with either arm. Yep, that’s right. Gow could be the first known…Read more...

Pete Alonso’s two-run walkoff homer in the 10th inning Thursday improved the New York Mets’ record to 26-14, which is good for the second-most wins in baseball and a six-and-a-half-game lead in the NL East. They have a +44 run differential, put up the fourth most runs in the MLB, and boast the league’s fourth…Read more...

For a second there, Derrick White’s child was going to be the most interesting and discussed birth in the world. The Boston Celtics tweeted out shortly before 10 a.m. that Derrick White would be missing Game 2 due to personal reasons. That’s quite a blow to their roster the morning of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference…Read more...

Winning the MVP award isn’t about taking home a chunk of metal sponsored by Kia. It’s about being able to hold the distinction of “Best Player in the World” over the competition’s heads. Nobody cares about winning something, they care about the distinction that comes with winning that thing. They care about the title,…Read more...

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John Stockton is the reason why people delete their Facebook accounts. Every white person’s most obnoxious uncle by marriage is at it again, firing off right-wing disinformation at all hours of the night. This time he made use of his Microsoft Office subscription and typed up a nice Word doc, intended to serve as a…Read more...

Black people have it hard. Black women have it harder. Black gay women have it the hardest. It’s tough being a triple minority in America, but especially in Russia.Read more...

For the second straight time that All Elite Wrestling’s weekly flagship television show, Dynamite, was held in Texas, CM Punk, arguably the company’s biggest star, wore a t-shirt to support abortion rights.Read more...

You know what? Maybe everyone getting along wasn’t so great after all. When you think about it, there haven’t been any real true, deep-down, openly public, hate-filled coaching rivalries in college for awhile. Jimbo Fisher blew all of that up today in about 11 minutes, between 10:04 and 10:15 a.m. central time. He is…Read more...

As people at all points on the political spectrum believe that America is in a godless state, I would like to share a portion of one of my favorite scriptures from the Christian Bible. I believe that I Thessalonians 4:11 can be shared in a public forum of people with various points of view without pitchforks, stones,…Read more...

Carson Wentz is one of those lucky individuals who’s received chance after chance to prove himself as a starting NFL quarterback. Hall of Famer Troy Aikman even suggests this is likely Wentz’ last opportunity to show the league he’s a franchise QB.Read more...

There was a time where Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore was considered one of the top young shutdown corners in the league. During his rookie season, Pro Football Focus gave Lattimore an 87.7 grade in pass coverage, the highest among rookies that year and the highest of Lattimore’s career. After that incredible…Read more...

Sporting leagues should enact a per game minimum of fun-yet-stupid plays attempts. For the NBA, each squad should be required to take at least 15 30-foot plus jumpers. There should be at least two trick plays per team in NFL games. I don’t know what it is for soccer or hockey. Maybe it’s something along the lines of…Read more...

The NHL’s second round hasn’t gotten off to the most rousing start. The Lightning did that efficiency thing where they play just well enough for just long enough to win, even if it did involve Nikita Kucherov turning Aaron Ekblad into a tetherball set. The Avalanche looked unstoppable, and the Rangers tried and failed…Read more...