Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

He who has the gold, or in this case, the ability to dribble past his way through a cluttered paint, makes all the rules.

There was no goal horn. No point to the net from the closest official. No audible cheer from the Avalanche faithful in attendance at Tampa’s Amalie Arena. All for the decisive shot and score from Nazem Kadri that essentially won the Colorado Avalanche the Stanley Cup.

The NFL’s MVP Award has been around since 1957. In that time, fullbacks have won the award four times. Two defensive players have been given the honor, and even a kicker has taken home the hardware. Zero pass catchers have won the award though, and for the most part, none have gotten particularly close.

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It’s been 50 years since Title IX was signed into law. It’s been 38 years since the Supreme Court ruled that Title IX didn’t apply to college athletics, and 34 years since Congress overruled that decision through legislation. And it’s been one year since duplicate counting of female college athletes added 4,000 more…Read more...

The 2022 NBA Draft is just hours away, and the top three seem to be locked among Chet Holmgren (Gonzaga), Jabari Smith (Auburn), and Paolo Banchero (Duke). Some talking heads and experts think it’s a toss-up as to which player will be selected No. 1. I don’t think it’s even close. Holmgren is pulling up the rear in…Read more...

One of Title IX’s most significant triumphs in the last 50 years has been the soaring number of women competing in high school sports. The number of women in sports grew more than tenfold, from 294,015 in the 1971-72 school year to 3.4 million in 2019, according to a Women’s Sports Foundation study. At a collegiate…Read more...

Daniel Snyder has run one of the NFL’s flagship franchises into the ground. From revenue to attendance and overall fan interest, the now-Commanders have never been less relevant to the most popular sport in America, with no signs of the end of the plummet in sight.

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference in sports fandom here in the colonies and abroad. Specifically, how soccer fans still feel like they have some control and say in how their clubs and sport is run (and in Germany they most certainly do). While here we have a more just-take-it mentality. Perhaps it’s in the…Read more...

What the hell is going on? Typically this early on before the draft, the trades are evenly balanced. First, the Thunder trades the 30th pick in this year’s draft plus two future second-round picks for JaMychal Green and what will end up being a top-five protected pick after the protections become official. Then, we…Read more...

The great Reese Bobby admitted that he didn’t think through the only advice that he ever gave his son in Talladega Nights the Ballad of Ricky Bobby. “If you ain’t first, you’re last,” doesn’t even make sense. As Reese said after getting thrown out of Applebees, “you could be second, third, fourth, hell you could even…Read more...

The New Orleans Pelicans blueprint was on display in the 2022 NBA Finals.Read more...

So much inclusion in sports can be attributed to Title IX. The passing of that law gave women inroads into sports, and they have used those routes to bring added representation of not only women but also women who identify as LGBTQ+. From Megan Rapinoe and Abby Wambach in soccer to Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Candace…Read more...

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Society once felt a way about new facilities and amenities for female athletes. Those same feelings are here again with trans athletes.

Qatar has gone the way of Catholic parents before prom, enacting a ban on sex for the biggest party the city has ever thrown in the 2022 World Cup. If the lethal heat, deadlier working conditions, strict rules concerning alcohol, and summer-ruining schedule change wasn’t enough rain (sunlight of a heat-stroke-inducing…Read more...

Things got a little wild during Tuesday’s Golden State Warriors championship parade ceremony. Any team that wins a championship can bet on fans losing their minds alongside the athletes who won the title on the court. One young lady decided to seize her opportunity upon meeting Stephen Curry face to face and wasted no…Read more...

This train is never late.Read more...

Title IX turns 50 this month and, although the law is responsible for so much progress, the work is unfinished. The celebrations and acknowledgements are on the way, but for years women who play sports have been required to be thankful for scraps, and those days are over.Read more...

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A lot of the point of baseball throughout its ridiculously long history (when you consider any other sport that’s come since or started at the same time) was to argue about it. Most of that was good. Arguing which shortstop was better or how a pitcher should attack with two strikes or who should trade for whom. The…Read more...

Bradley Beal was expected to be the crown jewel of free agency this offseason. It was beginning to feel like things were falling into place for that to happen on Tuesday when it was reported by Michael Scotto of Hoopshype that Beal would be declining his $36.4 million player option for the 2022-23 season and become an…Read more...

The Ohio State University, after a three-year legal battle, has officially registered a trademark for “THE.” Yeah, you wouldn’t think you could do that for t*e most common words in t*e English language, right? Marc Jacobs was also attempting to trademark “THE,” and t*e U.S. Patent and Trademark Office initially…Read more...

Klay Thompson earned the right to act like an over-served fiancée during a bachelor party, with friends helping him keep all his valuables on his person and clearing out so he can showcase a dance move that looked a lot better when he tried it at home. When you spend two years rehabbing torn tendons and watching your…Read more...

Ah, if there’s anything that will make you feel the slightest semblance of sympathy for Roger Goodell in this situation, it’s watching him testify before the House Oversight Committee. Emphasis on slight, though — among the periods of being inexplicably interrogated about Dave Portnoy and baby formula, Goodell also…Read more...

Steph Curry isn’t your average, ordinary, everyday basketball player. What a hot take from me, right? Sizzling! I had to put my keyboard in an ice bath after typing out those words. He’s the greatest shooter of all time. He’s arguably a top-10 player all-time and cemented his legacy with a fourth NBA title and first…Read more...

We’re still very much in a time where teams in any sport are going to overreact to playoff results. They have 82 or 162 games of sample size where they play everyone and aren’t confined to one matchup with one team at one time with one status of health, but whatever happens in four to seven games still sends teams…Read more...

She has had enough. Michele Tafoya has taken a look at the current state of society and a new message is necessary. She sees people afraid to give opinions in public, afraid to repost whatever she thinks is necessary to be expressed on social media, and much like Frank Constanza when he rained blows upon the man in…Read more...

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The Chet Holmgren vs. Paolo Banchero vs. Jabari Smith debate as to who will be the first player taken in tomorrow’s NBA Draft has been the talk of the entire season (and offseason). Three one-and-dones from great schools representing the way it’s been done for decades, two of them not yet 20 years old. You get the…Read more...

The most exciting time, other than any actual championship, for a fan of a team that is supposedly in a total rebuild is when the hopes for the future start to populate that Major League roster. There isn’t any pressure of “having” to win, and no longer are these players relegated to the myth of whispers, reports, and…Read more...

Today is the one-year anniversary of MLB’s ban on sticky substances. In that time, we’ve seen a massive decrease in spin rate, a few suspensions, plus a striptease or two from Max Scherzer and company. Even most fans seemed to like the change. Yes sir, everything was going according to plan for Rob Manfred and…Read more...

The evil empire has returned in a major way. The New York Yankees became a championship contender following the trade in which they acquired 2017 National League MVP Giancarlo Stanton, just one month after he won the award. The Bombers won 100 games in 2018 and 103 in 2019, but suffered some setbacks in the next two…Read more...

The next week is shaping up to be a volatile one for Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets. You could start a drinking game for every time that lede’s been written this season and you’d end up a vegetable. It may ring hollow, but this one is the most critical game of brinksmanship of his Nets tenure.

Hockey — as weird, random, and boorish as it can get — is a pretty simple game at times. The storylines coming out of Game 3 were that the Tampa Bay Lightning authored some market correction to get back into the Stanley Cup Final after a 6-2 win to get the series to 2-1. And with no team having won on the road yet,…Read more...

Disgraced Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson now only has four pending lawsuits brought against him. That’s because 20 cases against the former Houston Texans starter have settled, attorney Tony Buzbee, who represents the women suing Watson, said in a statement on Tuesday.

On the list of things NBA players don’t want to do, playing in Sacramento has to be close to No. 1, right? When Ben Simmons presented Philly with his platter of preferred trade destinations, an exec said he wanted to go to one of the three California teams, which was either an oversight because there are four NBA…Read more...

This morning’s rumor mill may have proven that the PGA Tour is resting on a more delicate balance than we’d all like to pretend. Brooks Koepka’s departure surprised absolutely nobody — he can’t stay away from beating Bryson for that long, and he also gave the shadiest and vaguest possible responses to questions about…Read more...

Of course, “wrong” is a relative term. In any sense that WWE cares about, or its most dedicated fans care about, WWE is as far from “wrong” as can be. Their TV deals are for more money than Scrooge McDuck could fit into his vault. The ratings remain strong enough to keep USA and Fox happy. The arenas are full for the…Read more...

The Orlando Magic seems to have finally figured it out. Since Dwight Howard left in the clumsiest way possible in 2012, the franchise has been mired in mediocrity. They have been the poster child for the dreaded NBA purgatory. Since Howard’s departure, they’ve made the playoffs twice, losing in the first round in five…Read more...

Sporting higher-ups being brought in front of a government hearing isn’t restricted to these borders, as yesterday the CEO, president, and chief of the board of governors of Hockey Canada were questioned by Canadian MPs over a settled lawsuit by a woman claiming she was gang-raped by eight players who were part of a…Read more...

Last year’s draft is already looking like an all-time great. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t gems to be had in the 2022 NBA Draft. Analysts have said this is a four-person draft. But with the league experiencing greater parity than it has in the last two decades, the need for high-impact role players is at a…Read more...

The funny thing about sportswriters complaining about how a professional season is too long is if you ask a person if they’re overworked, how many are going to say no? Any amount of work is too much. Interview me after a long shift or following a session with a therapist, and I’m ready to chase get retired quick…Read more...

In the NBA, the playoffs are truly a second season. There are no more back-to-backs, but there are also no more rest games for players. Also, there are no more sub-.400 teams on the schedule. To recover from a bad loss in the postseason, requires returning to the court 48 hours later and playing against the very same…Read more...

What is Shaedon Sharpe? Future bust? Future superstar? Role player? Sharpe is the enigma of this Thursday’s draft. He could be many different things, perhaps a few at the same time. The only thing we know for sure is he’s going to be a Lottery pick. Nevertheless, Sharpe has been projected to go in the Top 10 in almost…Read more...

To stay physically and mentally fit with zero setbacks for a grueling, 10-month soccer season is impossible. Truly putting on the blinders from the outside world for a month, maintaining your peak condition both on the field and away from training was the treacherous, yet not impossible goal. Curtailing every day to…Read more...

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The black swan theory was an idea developed by former Stock trader Nassim Taleb in 2007. As explained by Taleb, the theoretical black swan can be summarized as an event or outlier outside the realm of realistic expectations that has an extreme impact on history and makes experts invent explanations, but not until well…Read more...

This is not said very often, but poor Michael Jordan. The NBA legend got Whitleyed by Kenny Atkinson. Jordan was about to start a new life with Atkinson leading his Charlotte Hornets. They fit together as well as Byron and Whitley in the fifth season of A Different World, but then Dwayne Wayne, a.k.a. The Golden State…Read more...