Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Major League Baseball is great. As long as no one is complaining about the unwritten rules and Nick Castellanos isn’t at the plate, the game is laid back and fun. I doubt I could enjoy it any more than I already do.Read more...

Joel Embiid learned a valuable lesson in Tuesday night’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in the waning seconds. When you come at the king, you best not miss. Or at least go up for game-tying shots more aggressively when the king of weakside blocks is prowling.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay is still feeling the aftershock of the Carson Wentz experiment, weeks after trading the former No. 2 overall pick to Washington. Irsay just can’t seem to get past his mistake of trading for Wentz last offseason and how the team fell apart, led by the QB at the end of last season.

Marsha Blackburn and Cory Booker — now there’s two names you don’t expect to see co-authoring a Senate bill. But I guess if there’s one thing that can bridge the ever-widening political chasm in the United States, it’s the universal experience of being fed up with the NCAA.

The Clippers appear to be operating like a team that’s extremely aware of its mortality. Paul George returned from injury Tuesday to help lead LA to a comeback win over the Utah Jazz, scoring 34 points in 31 minutes. If his right elbow — which could’ve been repaired via surgery but he opted to play through it — was…Read more...

The term “White Sox” in baseball basically means anger. Or at least a heavy pinch of it to go with however else it might be defined. There is always an undercurrent of seething with the White Sox and their fans. It’s part of their identity. The White Sox are a symbol of their part of Chicago, the Southside, which…Read more...

Sometimes, even the NBA’s all-time leading scorer misses an easy one.

Records are made to be broken, specifically any LPs that were pressed of the 2010 Scott Stapp (yes, the Creed guy) song “Marlins Will Soar,” the baseball team song to end all baseball team songs.

In the NBA, teams with stars and veteran leadership usually make waves in the postseason and win championships. It’s rare to see a team of young inexperienced players going deep in the postseason, no matter how talented they are. Of course, there are outliers to everything.Read more...

Last night, there was one of those rare regular-season NBA games that rise to the level of must-see. The Sixers and Bucks met in Philadelphia, and with the top four seeds in the Eastern Conference still in flux, and could very well finish in any order, it had some real meaning. And it was a classic, as much as any…Read more...

Championship windows are an interesting concept, in theory. However, they assume too much. One one hand, it’s impossible to project how rosters will look from year-to-year. Half the league’s championship prospects are a one-window apartment facing an alley. Teams like the Chiefs, Packers, and Bills have a porch…Read more...

The private flight tracking, the Medalist rumors, the never-ending hope — this morning, the last year of Tiger Woods news came to a head when he touched down at Augusta National, home of the Masters, for a practice round that almost no one saw coming. Just over a year after a car accident that nearly cost the 15-time…Read more...

If no good deed goes unpunished, what happens when you perform a good deed from a place of self-interest? Soon-to-be-former owner of Chelsea FC Roman Abramovich found out after he tried to “help” the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

For all the energy devoted to the Lia Thomas story, you’d think there was an army of transitioning athletes looking to snatch Division I titles from the women who rightfully won them. Laws have been written, passed, vetoed and passed again to prevent people assigned one sex at birth from competing with people who…Read more...

It’s already an instant classic and the ball won’t be tipped for four more days. The greatest rivalry in college basketball, one of the fiercest in all of sports, heads to the Final Four. Duke squaring off with North Carolina is a momentous, must-watch occasion when it takes place under routine circumstances during…Read more...

The annual NFL owners’ meetings always bring a flurry of storylines, rumors, and occasionally rule changes. This year’s meetings brought some pretty significant changes. Per a release from the NFL, the free kick formation rules that were tested in 2021 will be made permanent starting this year. That’s whatever. It…Read more...

Precedent, precedent, precedent. There may be countless takeaways from the Cleveland Browns’ newest QB hire, but the salary contingencies they’ve set up for Deshaun Watson are sure to set a league-wide standard that will have a significant impact on future quarterback contracts.

It’s been a whirlwind offseason for the Seattle Seahawks and their fanbase, with the potential to get even worse. The team started down the path of rebuilding by trading away Russell Wilson earlier this month. Soon after, rumors began circulating around 24-year-old wide receiver DK Metcalf potentially becoming the…Read more...

Opponents of the St. Louis Cardinals better get their rocking chairs and kitsch retirement gifts ready because another act had been added to the team’s retirement tour. Former lead singer/first baseman and current designated hitter Albert Pujols is rejoining the Red Birds for what he says is his “last run.”Read more...

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BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — There was no good answer for the NCAA when it came to seeding Connecticut for March Madness.

The people that thought Brian Flores was lying have gone predictably silent.

While NC State and UConn were producing the college basketball game of the year in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, professional women’s hockey was also having a blinder on its biggest night as well.

After months of back and forth, protests, and outright refusing to get vaccinated, Kyrie Irving got his wish and was able to return as a full-time player in Brooklyn on Sunday. Irving scored just 16 points in his home debut, a Nets loss 119-110 to the Charlotte Hornets. All that build-up and noise about Irving being…Read more...

It has become tiring to describe baseball and those in it and just outside of it, as crusty. But it also hasn’t stopped me from being crusty on certain subjects that MLB has discussed to try and liven the game up. I hate the expanded playoffs. I don’t mind the DH in the NL anymore, though I used to be an ideologue. I…Read more...

When Tom Brady announced his “retirement” in January, the sports media world seemed split on whether he was really done with football. Since the announcement, Brady’s already ditched retirement. Now there’s a rumor of a potential trade out of Tampa Bay.Read more...

On the surface, it’s a patently ridiculous question. Of course the US can’t go without a player who regularly plays for one of the biggest clubs in the world, where his manager loves him, and comes up with goals for a national team that still struggles to find them. And to ask this question after just one or two good…Read more...

Welcome to the Elite Eight of the Fictional Hoopers Tournament. All the fat and sinew (Sandy Lyle and Steve Urkel) have been trimmed, and the characters left are all from powerhouse pictures. No one has been able to knock off either of White Men Can’t Jump’s main characters (celebrated last night at the Oscars, and…Read more...

Never before has a player done so much, but it meant so little. Enter LeBron James.

CHICAGO — Bill Self survived… himself.

It’s not official yet. The USMNT still has to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and all that. Which means they have to manage to not lose to Costa Rica by six goals or more on Wednesday. Quite frankly, the more impressive feat than qualifying for the World Cup would be losing by six in Costa Rica, and even then the U.S.…Read more...

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant is having a sensational season. Morant has led his team to the second-best record in the NBA and they’ve eclipsed 50 wins for the first time since the 2014-15 campaign. And Memphis still has the chance to set a franchise record for regular season wins (56) with seven games remaining.…Read more...

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — N.C. State, the top seed in the Bridgeport Regional, advanced to its first Elite Eight in 24 years on Saturday, Raina Perez’s steal and fast break layup in the closing seconds put the Wolfpack ahead to stay in their 66-63 triumph over No. 4 Notre Dame which led most of the way. Despite being the…Read more...

On Oscar weekend, Space Jam: A New Legacy is being honored with a surprising distinction that has LeBron James stans flying their flags at half-mast. This isn’t a LeBron hate space, but we’ve got to keep it 100. I used to joke that LeBron would have been the perfect casting choice for Magic Johnson in HBO’s Winning…Read more...

Former NFL MVP Cam Newton’s career has been spiraling downward over the last couple of years. Last season Newton made his way back to Carolina after a stop in New England. While he’s no longer MVP Cam from 2015, a couple of teams could still utilize his skill set, even if it’s as a backup.Read more...

Triple H announcing his retirement on Friday with Stephen A. Smith was more of a confirmation than a surprise. The dude nearly died due to heart failure, after all, and he hadn’t been in the ring in three years. He’s in his 50s too, though that hasn’t stopped a host of others. And there was still a part of us that,…Read more...

The Creighton Blue Jays became just the third 10-seed to make it to the Elite Eight in the history of the women’s tournament, and the fourth double-digit seed, after steamrolling the entire state of Iowa. This March’s second-best Cinderella story (because, come on, no one’s beating the Peacocks for that title) has…Read more...

I feel like this is somehow my fault.Read more...

Sports movies often get overlooked during Oscar season. The last time a sports film won Best Picture was 2005 when Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby took home the night’s most coveted award. Since then, it’s been crickets. Some sports movies and short films have been given some recognition with lesser awards (i.e.:…Read more...

The Washington Wizards are still playing basketball, and I thought I’d inform you because you may have forgotten about them like the empty La Croix can on your coffee table that’s been there so long it’s basically a centerpiece. “Ignored garbage” is probably the most apt way to describe this team after their hot/lucky…Read more...

CHICAGO — On a night in which most of the conversation in college basketball was about Peacocks and one of Jesus’ disciplines, in Chicago, Kansas advanced to the Elite Eight because of… cognac?Read more...

There have been six double-digit seeds to make the Final Four, and St. Peter’s – after a third straight stunning win Friday night, 67-64 over third-seeded Purdue in the East Regional semifinal in Philadelphia – is one win against North Carolina on Sunday from becoming the seventh.Read more...

I’m going to make this quick because there is far too much ink and time spent on Enes Freedom, a one-trick pony on the court who learned a new trick to stay relevant off of it. He made headlines again this week by putting up 42 points and 24 rebou— err, scratch that. That’s impossible because he’s not on an NBA team…Read more...

There’s a rumor swirling around right now that could turn this blazing fire of an NFL offseason into an inferno. According to New England Sports Network’s Dale Arnold, there’s a very real possibility that Tom Brady won’t spend the 2022 season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but rather with another Florida team a little…Read more...

JuJu Smith-Schuster and Jackson Mahomes was a collab no one wanted but was seemingly forced upon us when Smith-Schuster signed a one-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs. Fans braced themselves for the inevitable onslaught of TikToks featuring the pair shimmying on top of memorials and/or midfield logos.

Jordan Mailata sang his ass off and probably shouldn’t have been revealed as Thingamabob on Wednesday night’s episode of FOX’s The Masked Singer. The Eagles’ offensive lineman made the transition from blocking defensive ends to singing “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi on national television.

Deshaun Watson wants to be “hands-on” in the Cleveland community — a poor choice of words, perhaps, given the 22 ongoing civil lawsuits against him for sexual misconduct.

Bugs is the best bunny left in our Sweet 16

Providence Friars head coach Ed Cooley is in the damn building — that building being, of course, Chicago’s United Center, where the Friars will face top-seeded Kansas tonight in the Sweet 16.Read more...