Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It takes a selfless person to turn their trauma into a blessing for others.Read more...

With the start of the 2021 NFL season seven months away, the conversation about the lack of Black head coaches tends to go dormant after the Super Bowl, as those potential candidates aren’t eligible to be hired for another 11 months.

Deciding to attend the first live sports event in New York City with fans in just under a year, indoors at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, had me very much channeling Sméagol/Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.

Luka Dončić is happiness.

I can’t remember who it was exactly, or what he said exactly. It was after Kurt Cobain died, and I want to say it was the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson. I know it was one of those AOL Q&As, which immediately makes me feel 138 years old. Considering what else Chris Robinson has gone on to say about Cobain, I can’t be…Read more...

After a lengthy surgery Tuesday, Tiger Woods is “awake, responsive and recovering in his hospital room,” read a statement posted to the golfer’s official Twitter account.

Boy, did this match need this. Today’s Champions League round-of-16 first leg between Chelsea and Atletico Madrid was a chore. Atletico can always be that, as their identity for the past decade has been to be defiantly, sneeringly obstinate. Chelsea are still finding their feet under new manager Thomas Tuchel, so…Read more...

In advance of NBA consumers getting pissed off at tonight’s full All-Star roster reveal, it’s only right to brace ourselves for the angry fanbases who will defensively rise up in a matter of hours.

It’s a stretch to say that Jamal Murray is finally back to his bubble self, but his last six games highlight that he’s on that trajectory. Since February 12, the enigmatic Orangeville-native has averaged 31.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. His field goal, three-point, and free throw shooting line percentages…Read more...

Sometimes we all get stuck thinking about the past when we shouldn’t.

Yesterday, we pointed out the fishiness of the Artemi Panarin story. While any story of domestic violence/sexual assault is worthy of a deeper look, the circumstances around this one didn’t quite add up from the start. One, the claim came from a stated political enemy of Panarin in former coach Andrei Nazarov, not the…Read more...

Tiger Woods was in a rollover car accident on Tuesday morning in Los Angeles just after 7 a.m., and hospitalized at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in serious but stable condition due to injuries in the single-vehicle wreck.

The 2022 Winter Olympics are less than a year away and one country is starting to call for the games to relocate over egregious human rights abuses.Read more...

David Fletcher is a nice, solid ballplayer. Since debuting with the Angels in 2018, he’s played all over the field and been above-average defensively wherever he goes, while posting a .292/.346/.386 line with 10 homers and 13 steals in 283 games.

It’s Trash Talking Tuesday, and today I’m trashing the NHL for that debacle outdoor game at Lake Tahoe.Read more...

It’s officially official.Read more...

WWE isn’t known for its sensitivity, and at times is quite proud of that, and that was clearly evident on Sunday night during the company’s “Elimination Chamber” pay-per-view event. Matt Riddle won the United States Championship, and to say the timing is odd would be scaling a mountain of a euphemism.

Not that it needed an announcement, but there was a brief period of time last night when Albert Pujols’ wife had declared this upcoming season the last of his illustrious career. She did her best to walk it back later, as that’s how these things tend to go.

Rudy Giuliani, fuck you.Read more...

While the NFL begins to lick its chops about having full capacities for the 2021 season, and MLB try to find every break and crack they can to start getting fans in from Opening Day, across the pond they’re planning for big returns too.

I have a serious question: Is this typical of what goes on in men’s bathrooms at bars? My only experience is with women’s bathrooms in bars and clubs, which are, after a certain point in the night, havens of shared lip gloss, generous compliments, and declarations of our deep and abiding love for each other.

There’s no debate that James Harden’s departure from Houston was less than ideal. He threw a tantrum similar to that of a three-year-old toddler in a grocery store before he was traded to Brooklyn.Read more...

Nothing is more infuriating than being ignored, only to be proven right.

Tailgates, gameday traffic, long restroom lines, and tens of thousands of people packed in stands sound crazy right now. And it should. But we could be living in a completely different world by September.

It isn’t very often that we see an example of professional athletes expressing their discomfort with a teammate accused of domestic violence, but Zack Britton, relief pitcher for the Yankees, is providing us with such a moment regarding his fellow reliever, Domingo Germån. It’s wildly refreshing.

It’s probably easiest to start this layered story at the top. Artemi Panarin, star winger of the New York Rangers, is taking a leave of absence from the team as a story back in Russia broke today about him allegedly beating up a 18-year-old girl in a bar in Riga in 2011. While this may at first appear just the outing…Read more...

Deion Sanders’ greatest strength is also his greatest weakness.

Free agent quarterback Cam Newton showed his class over the weekend after being called “ass” by a heckling kid at one of his football camps.

The numbers are stoopid.

Yet another baseball executive stepped in a big ol’ pile yesterday.

It’s always funny, and easy, to laugh at the NHL and their constant failed plans. No league can step on a rake as quickly and thoroughly as this one. And there’s something truly symmetrical about Gary Bettman declaring the sun his enemy. But their “ski weekend” in Lake Tahoe was probably still worth it. I think.Read more...

Hey, remember when Trevor Bauer sat at his introductory presser with the Dodgers and said he’d learned from his social media fuck-ups and was doing his best to be better? Well, if you had “one week” in your “When Will That Be Proven As Utter Horseshit” pool, please collect your winnings at the window.

Few fixtures suffer from the lack of fans more than the Milan derby, especially this latest iteration. A split stadium, 80,000 fans baying for blood and justice, tifos galore, all in service to a top of the table contest, it would have been an epic occasion. Inter Milan came into this leading Serie A by one point over…Read more...

Update (February 22, 2021): The kid apologized.Read more...

Today, Ian Desmond announced that he will opt out of the 2021 season “for now.” The veteran outfielder will miss his second straight year of baseball to be with his family. He announced his decision Sunday morning via Instagram, writing:Read more...

Thirty-four-year-old wide receivers aren’t hot commodities in the NFL. But it doesn’t mean they can’t be intriguing.

Every Grand Slam for the past...well, the years are getting innumerable now, and barely even fathomable, given the unseen greatness and longevity of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic. Fans keep asking: “Will this be the time?” That is, the time someone else breaks through, someone else rises to the level of the three best…Read more...

Sports fans, meet Caleb Pendleton. We already mentioned him in The Mourning After, but I think he deserves his own story.

Naomi Osaka could be on the verge of becoming a cultural icon.

Charlotte and Golden State are both squarely on the playoff bubble in their respective conferences. What if their fate at the end of the season comes down to one game?

Apparently it’s difficult to keep a 200-by-85 foot sheet of ice in pristine condition, appropriate for world-class ice sports, while it bakes under recently discovered celestial bodies that produce light and heat. Who knew?Read more...

Mike Babcock has long had a reputation of not being good at working with young players because he lacks the patience necessary to develop talent as part of a long-term plan. It was a major question mark from the time the Toronto Maple Leafs hired the two-time Olympic gold medal-winning coach, and Babcock’s failure in…Read more...

You may remember 2015, when Syracuse announced that Jim Boeheim would “retire in three years.”

A month before the disgruntled Carson Wentz was traded by the Philadelphia Eagles to the Indianapolis Colts, there was a poll conducted by Philly sports radio outlet, 97.5 The Fanatic.Read more...

To find the last time two NBA players scored 50 points on the same night, you have to go all the way back to February 7, when Stephen Curry and Nikola Jokic both went for half-a-century (57 in Curry’s case), both in losing efforts.

It’s still a long way back to the Premier League for Sunderland, the club whose fall from the top flight to the third tier of English soccer was chronicled in the Netflix documentary Sunderland ’Til I Die.Read more...

We already know that Trevor Bauer is a huge jerk and that the Mets lucked out when he spurned them to take the Dodgers’ $102 million, but the reigning National League Cy Young winner went ahead on Friday and demonstrated once again that he’s a lot dumber than he thinks he is.

Carson Wentz has been traded, yet somehow the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback situation is not firmly answered, and I have no idea why.Read more...

The decision to not only hold an NBA All-Star Weekend in Atlanta, highlighted by the game itself on March 7, is as befuddling as commissioner Adam Silver’s efforts to triple-down on it. Last night, Silver spoke to Inside The NBA regarding the All-Star Game, and Ernie Johnson actually opened the floor, discussing his…Read more...