Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It appears Russia’s hardline obsession with punishing drug offenders has its limit after all. On Wednesday morning, Russia released a U.S. citizen and former marine, Trevor Reed, as part of prisoner exchange. In July 2020, Reed was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison following an altercation with Russian police…Read more...

Remember when the NBA tried new basketballs, and the response was so overwhelmingly negative that the league switched back to the old balls midseason? If you fall into the Venn diagram of baseball and basketball fans, you probably recall this story, but if you’re strictly a baseball person, what happened is the ball…Read more...

The playoffs have started, and it’s been one of the most chaotic first rounds in recent memory. Both conferences feel very wide open thanks to critical injuries and various superstars playing underwhelming basketball. Going into this year’s postseason, it felt like a rematch of last year’s Finals between the Phoenix…Read more...

That isn’t to say that Madrid won last night, because they most certainly didn’t. 4-3 results when you have the three is a loss in the scorebook. And it’s that kind of biting analysis that keeps you coming back. But Madrid “won” in that a one-goal deficit when the second leg is at home, where white-shirted gremlins…Read more...

Mark Emmert announced his resignation yesterday, stepping down as president of the NCAA, a position he’d held since November 1, 2010.

In Minnesota, chicken lives matter more than Black ones.Read more...

I do appreciate that Jerry Jones will actually get in front of a microphone and talk to the people. It’s something that his brethren in NFL ownership refuse to do, and maybe if they did they would have the most valuable sports franchise in the entire world. Is Jones talking for the sake of transparency in a way that…Read more...

The annoying after effect of the Los Angeles Rams winning the Super Bowl is we have to pretend that everything they do is cute or cool. Matthew Stafford’s appearance in an AT&T commercial was the first ad I can remember seeing him in, and now I have to laugh at him winking at the camera until the NBA Playoffs end in…Read more...

If nothing else, you have to respect Kevin Durant for staying on brand at all times. The Brooklyn Nets completed one of the most disappointing seasons of all time by being swept in the first round by the Boston Celtics, and being the first team eliminated from the 2022 NBA Playoffs. Their experiment didn’t work. They…Read more...

This time of year is far and away the most frantic for a sports fan. Usually both the NBA and NHL are in their playoffs, with three or four games per night each. This year, the NHL is dragging ass a bit, and there really is only one playoff race, but it still means one has to keep tabs on it. The NBA is now deep into…Read more...

After months of speculation concerning the contents of the “scandalous” sealed letter that supposedly contained evidence of a previously unknown cheating scandal involving the New York Yankees, the contents were allegedly revealed in a report by Andy Martino, an MLB Insider for SportsNet New York, in which he says SNY…Read more...

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Mental health issues aren’t unheard of in the NBA. All-Stars like Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan have openly discussed their battles in recent years. However, Ben Simmons’ inability to play through a mysterious mental block and his reticence to speak about it has turned him into an NBA medical mystery.Read more...

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As gunshots rang out near a recent Little League game in North Charleston, S.C., every kid in sight knew how to act immediately. The game was no longer important. Get down and wait until the adults around them have deemed it’s safe to get up from sprawling on the ground. And try to stay alive.

Since Joel Embiid hit that incredible dagger 3 to beat Toronto in Game 3 and give the 76ers a 3-0 advantage in the series, his team has dropped back-to-back games and held a lead for five minutes and 17 seconds out of a possible 96 minutes. Philadelphia has won exactly two of the past eight quarters against the…Read more...

Priorities, right? Let’s ban all Russian and Belaruisan athletes who are blameless, even if they’ve spoken out on national television against soulless Vladimir Putin in Russia’s brutal ongoing war against Ukraine. But unvaccinated Novak Djokovic is allowed to compete at Wimbledon without getting a jab in his arm, a…Read more...

It is hard to miss that Monday Night Raw has been built around, in large part, Riddle and Austin Theory of late. Riddle is one half of the wildly popular RK Bro tag team champs with legend Randy Orton, and appears to be on his way to headlining the company’s next PPV. You might wonder why he isn’t “Matt Riddle”…Read more...

The NFL Draft is all about predicting the future. There are countless guesses as to which players will fit in a certain system or what position groups have the deepest talent pool that could affect where the league trends down the line. In preparation for those hypotheticals, most will look back at what worked and…Read more...

Everybody on earth may be into sports, but those that aren’t are about to be introduced to the quintessential sports-owner type. While there are a small number of unfathomably wealthy people, very little brings out the personalities in these gluttonous capitalists like owning a professional sports franchise. Bill…Read more...

And thus ends yet another attempt by the Brooklyn Nets to skip the line and crash into the NBA penthouse. Actually, “another Nets experiment” sounds a little more apt. Because the Nets, the Brooklyn version, have always felt like one.

Ime Udoka is who so many fans — and media members — desperately wanted Brad Stevens to be.

Even after the New Orleans Pelicans’ disastrous 1-12 start to the 2021-22 season, it’s not as if there was some seismic shift. Their first winning streak came in mid-December when they tallied four victories in a row. Before that, they were still only 9-21 on the season. Since that streak they have been a better team,…Read more...

What’s a Point God to a nonbeliever? Going into last night’s Game 4 against the New Orleans Pelicans, a 118-103 New Orleans win, Chris Paul had already put together a pair of impressive fourth-quarter performances to help the Phoenix Suns go up 2-1. It looks like that may not happen again this series though as the…Read more...

See? It’s an altitude joke! Because they play in Denver, see? Pretty genius, huh? I know, I’m great. Yes, it is a burden, but one I carry for you. Because you deserve it.

The sports calendar makes it so that you always know what time of the year it is based on which games are being played. The NFL is trying to make every season its own.

If you’re trying to blow your own face off and fall down a sewer for comedic effect instead of securing a playoff spot, you’d have to give the Vegas Golden Knights an Emmy for their performance last night. Needing just about every point they can get to pass the Dallas Stars for the last wildcard spot in the West, and…Read more...

If you’ve followed this NFL Draft closely, you know that consensus isn’t exactly a thing. There’s no quarterback prospect worth lusting over, and even if that won’t stop teams from reaching on one, we won’t have a storyline until Chicago actually drafts Mitch Trubisky with the No. 2 overall pick.

After three pitiful playoff games, on Saturday Karl-Anthony Towns put together the best game of his brief playoff career, finishing with 33 points and 14 rebounds on 47 percent shooting. And wouldn’t you know it, the Timberwolves won the game, tying the series at 2-2. Much has been written about Towns’ personal…Read more...

Are you ready for FanDuel and Caesar’s Sportsbook commercials during your favorite sporting events to be followed by trailers for the Tim Donaghy story? If not, buckle up, because that is gonna be one helluva dichotomy as the big leagues dive into sports gambling in synchronized tandems, while we get reminded of the…Read more...

It’s become part of the rhythm of a baseball season. Mike Trout will tweak something, or leave a game early, and every baseball fan will sigh, and wonder why they can’t have nice things. We all feel deprived of something when Trout misses a large chunk of time. This will also happen whenever Shohei Ohtani misses a…Read more...

“If Kyrie and KD average 30 and 35 points per game, that’s only 65 points. Where are the rest of the points going to come from?”Read more...

Frank Lampard may not have any idea what he’s doing as a manager, or he may be saddled with just the biggest collection of mishmashed parts that don’t fit, but he is aware of history. It was eight years ago, almost to the day, that Lampard’s Chelsea showed up to Anfield to stifle a title-chasing Liverpool. In true…Read more...

“They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.”

Since the poems, short stories, and writings of Henry Dumas, a specter has risen out of the outer fringes of American arts and letters — Afro-surrealism. A hallmark of this genre is a self-awareness by the reader, author, and fictional characters that the world they inhabit is off-kilter. The term has roots in…Read more...

January 10, 2022 was a dreary day for Cowboys, Eagles, and Commanders fans across the world as the New York Giants announced general manager Dave Gettleman’s retirement. In his four years as GM, Gettleman made so many unthinkably bad moves that he became more valuable to the Cowboys than Dak Prescott, more vital to…Read more...

With an opposite field single in the first inning of Saturday’s game against the Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers’ slugger Miguel Cabrera, 39, became the 33rd player in MLB history to record 3,000 hits and the first Venezuelan-born player to accomplish the feat.Read more...

You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but the Baker Mayfield Heisman statue has gone up in Norman. It’s no Cristiano-Ronaldo-bust-level disaster, but it’s also definitely not Baker Mayfield’s face. My best hypothesis right now is that the sculptor took a guess at what the Heisman-winning quarterback is going to look…Read more...

The East’s top-seeded Heat aren’t sitting so comfortably after last night. Trae Young heaved up a game-winner to put the Hawks right back into the series.

There’s truly no precedent for what occurred Wednesday during a Texas junior college baseball game, as Owen Woodward, a pitcher for Weatherford College, came charging off the mound after giving up a go-ahead home run and speared the longball hitter to the ground as he rounded third base. I can’t remember another time…Read more...

There are several NFL teams that could use a great receiver, and with the success of rookies Justin Jefferson in 2020 and Ja’Marr Chase in 2021, many of those receiver-needy teams could be inclined to reach for one of the many talented receivers in the 2022 draft class.

A letter containing information about the 2015 and 2016 Yankees’ sign-stealing investigation will be made public in about a week, and Astros fans are awaiting its release like Democrats anticipated the findings of Robert Mueller’s Trump investigation.Read more...

Former Seattle Seahawks All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner was one of the headlining defensive names of this year’s free agency pool. Wagner, who does not have an agent and represents himself, joined Rich Eisen earlier this week to discuss his journey through free agency and eventual signing with the Los Angeles Rams.

Playing baseball is hard. Living up to the hype is a bit harder. But so far, Hunter Greene seems up to the task. It’s too bad the league he plays in isn’t.Read more...

Losers of three in a row, the Chicago White Sox currently sit at 6-6, tied for second place in the AL Central with the Kansas City Royals. Lo and behold, The ChiSox’s adversaries yesterday were the Cleveland Guardians. Cleveland took both games of Wednesday’s doubleheader, so you’d assume that manager Tony La Russa…Read more...

On Wednesday night, Alex Ovechkin recorded his 50th goal of the season. It is his eighth 50-goal season, which ties the record for most in NHL history, along with Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky. But Ovechkin’s accomplishment is far more impressive than those two’s, and eight 50-goal seasons in any era is a nearly…Read more...

We’re exactly six days away from the NFL draft, and yet we still aren’t sure what the first round is going to look like. Perhaps Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown, and/or Terry McLaurin are traded in the next few days and shake up the first round. Maybe the Panthers make a move for Baker Mayfield. And I don’t remember the last…Read more...

Curse thou, NBA playoff injury bug. Why dost thou mar a glorious display with your vile presence and wretched sting?

Where have all the coaches gone?

Kevin Durant has the utmost confidence in himself and his unique talent. Whether it’s during back-and-forths with the media or in response to team drama, he’s constantly repeating his mantra, “I just wanna hoop.”Read more...