Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

We USMNT fans have been dreaming for a while about what the team could be with the influx of young stars plying their trade in Europe over the past two years. Problem was, it had been more than 500 days since the national team played a game with anything riding on it, thanks to the pandemic. Can’t know what you have…Read more...

I grew up in Chicago, which means I grew up in a basketball atmosphere that was convinced the league was always rigging things for the Knicks. Even though the Bulls would go on to win six titles — beating the Knicks along the way for most of them — Bulls fans were always insistent that they had to overcome more than…Read more...

Sometimes sports are cute, and the last two days have been pretty freaking cute in one corner of the sports world. Much like a tweet to the Arizona Diamondbacks last month about a date taking place at their game, it started with a simple tweet to the Colorado Avalanche account on Tuesday.

Earlier today, the three finalists for the 2021 Calder Trophy were named.

Dan Campbell is already acting like a coach whose team has won eight games in two seasons.Read more...

When a team changes its name, there’s so much potential for creativity. Obviously, there are some aspects that need to be avoided. You don’t want to pick a name that will marginalize or stereotype any groups. You also want to choose something that represents the city, state, or area you’re playing for. Even with those…Read more...

We might be in store for something very rare in the NBA — a Finals that doesn’t include LeBron James. With the Lakers down 3-2 to the Phoenix Suns, the possibility is becoming more and more likely that the defending champs won’t make it out of the first round. Not seeing Lebron making a deep playoff run would be a…Read more...

In case you missed the news, the USFL is back!Read more...

You may be getting your large-sporting-events-that-shouldn’t-be-taking-place confused, and it would be understandable. There’s the Olympics, which just lost 10,000 volunteers, is in a state of emergency, and yet welcoming thousands of athletes from 200 countries — doesn’t seem all that sharp. There’s Euro 2020(1),…Read more...

Mike Trout has as many MVP awards as career playoff games played, with three, and for as much talk as there might be in baseball — even from the commissioner — about MLB’s need for the best player of his generation to take on the mantle of the face of the game, no amount of marketing can make up for the fact that when…Read more...

After Kentucky Derby winner* Medina Spirit failed his first drug test, his trainer, Bob Baffert, did the media rounds to blame cancel culture and everybody besides himself for his horse’s unusually high levels of betamethasone.Read more...

The Grizzlies are a front office move away from wrecking the entire NBA.

News of WWE releases have become regular happenings, and yet some of the most anticipated in some ways. That’s because these days, fans can dream of where their favorite, underused, and now free, performers could go to fulfill their promise and have all the creative freedom they lacked with WWE. It’s not just AEW,…Read more...

For boxing fans, it must be sad to watch what Showtime has become.

Anthony Davis should NOT play in the Los Angeles Lakers’ biggest game of the season.

Bonkers. Crazy. Nuts.

When hockey fans tell you, and they will tell you, that playoff hockey is the best thing in sports, what they’re imagining is that every game, every series, looks like Game 2 of the Avalanche and Knights. The thing is, of course, it doesn’t, and a lot of series are just noisy slogs as coaches really up the defensive…Read more...

We’re in that really weird time of the annual football calendar where the only thing football fans can cling to for hope and promise of their beloved sport returning to their screens is pictures and videos of athletes working out in gym shorts. But I’m not judging. In particular, football fans seem to have a strange…Read more...

If you ask a bunch of random people on the street who the best receiver in the National Football League is right now, you’d probably get a wide array of different answers. Green Bay’s Davante Adams would probably get a couple votes. Arizona’s DeAndre Hopkins would as well. Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs, Justin Jefferson,…Read more...

It’s time for us to have an honest conversation about Damian Lillard.

Potential is a sly word, as it’s just a nice way to say someone hasn’t done anything yet. It’s a label we attach to people and things that we believe will be able to achieve a certain level of success. Potential is great to have until you don’t do anything with it.

I know the overwhelming majority of NBA fans haven’t been throwing water bottles, or running onto the court, or spitting on players, ect. But the actions of a few Utah “fans” have caused Ja Morant’s mom to opt out of a complimentary offer to watch her son play on the road. For her, it’s just not worth it.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the otherworldly performance Damian Lillard gave last night in a losing effort — 55 points, 10 assists, six rebounds, three blocks. He’s the first NBA player ever — EVER — regular season or postseason, to post at least 50 points, 10 assists, and 10 three-pointers made in a game. And…Read more...

First a former player sued the Chicago Blackhawks over alleged sexual abuse from a coach, and now they’re being sued by a former high school player in Michigan where said coach, Brad Aldrich, landed after the Hawks gave him a positive recommendation for the job. The plaintiff is suing the Hawks for that endorsement,…Read more...

Major League Baseball is chock full of fun, meme-able characters that everybody loves to mock — but loves to root for even more. Take Bartolo Colon. He’d always been a solid player (even earned a couple of All-Star appearances in his final years), but was never one of the dominant arms in the game. Even in his Cy…Read more...

You’re a minor league ballplayer. The stadiums may be smaller, the team busses are no private jets, but your physical workload? Well, you’re a professional athlete. That means you probably need to eat a healthy meal after games or workouts. Which… is not asking for a lot. It’s pretty much the bare minimum. But a…Read more...

This story can be done pretty much every season, and it’s so fucking tired, but yet you can’t help but be surprised at its regularity. Bob Brenly complains about modern baseball in a not-all-that-vaguely racist way. Last night’s target was Marcus Stroman:Read more...

Laker Nation is in turmoil — and it’s absolutely hilarious.Read more...

Welcome to the Ladies Room - A Deadspin Sports Podcast.

Yeah, Dame Time is cool and all but have you ever seen Kia Nurse drain a three at the buzzer?

It was obvious from the very first shot of the pre-show to AEW’s “Double Or Nothing” pay-per-view on Sunday night. It was the first full-house crowd of any televised wrestling show since the pandemic started (Wrestlemania was half-full both nights), and you could tell the difference in the energy almost immediately.…Read more...

Back when I was in school in Boston in the pre-2004 days (yeah, I’m that fucking old and I don’t need you to remind me), I used to joke with the Red Sox fans in my circle that somehow the fact that the Sox lost the 1975 World Series had been erased from the record books thanks to Carlton Fisk’s homer. That it was such…Read more...

Knicks fans have been fed up all season with Tom Thibodeau’s insistence on keeping Elfrid Payton in the starting lineup. After two absolutely dismal starts in the playoffs against the Hawks, in which Payton went a combined 0-for-5 shooting with one point, one assist, and one steal in 13 minutes, during which the…Read more...

Yesterday, Twins’ backup backup center fielder Rob Refsnyder gave us a blooper that should play in stadiums across American ballparks by... [checks date] tonight.Read more...

Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz is a 3-time Pro Bowler, Super Bowl champ, and husband to a gold medalist soccer player. Those are some pretty solid accomplishments. Mr. Julie Ertz is just two years removed from a Pro Bowl season in which he caught 88 passes for 916 yards and six touchdowns. However, Ertz’s…Read more...

Add “non-fungible” to the list of words that define 2021.Read more...

Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open has sparked necessary conversation about athletes and mental health. It was so important to her that she was willing to sacrifice a potential $1.8 million in prize money to put her own peace first. That’s not the act of a so-called diva, or of someone just in a…Read more...

We’re well over a year into this thing. Thankfully, cases and deaths in the country are plummeting and vaccination rates are rising. Many Americans are now flying, attending sporting events, and getting back to some sort of “normal” that existed before the pandemic. For others, the effects of infection have lasted for…Read more...

Now you have to imagine Tom Ricketts in her dress. Have a nice day.

In episode eight of the sixth season of Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister gave pop culture one of its most popular phrases. Turned into a prisoner in her own home, the most powerful woman in Westeros was done playing politics as she felt diplomacy was no longer an option. She went with the nuclear option.

Three-time All-Star and 2015 AL MVP Josh Donaldson is in year two of a four-year deal worth $92 million with the Minnesota Twins. In just over a year with the club, Donaldson is slashing just .225/.343/.422, for an OPS of .765 with Minnesota — a far cry from the numbers the star third baseman was putting up with his…Read more...

Donovan Mitchell really could be the NBA’s finest one day.Read more...

How bad was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ collapse? It’s better to be a Knicks fan right now.

In 2006, Zach Greinke almost quit baseball. Racked with social anxiety, Greinke told the media he thought, “Why am I putting myself through torture when I didn’t really want to do it? I mean, I enjoyed playing, but everything else that went with it I didn’t.”Read more...

You can’t ask the media to talk about a story involving the media.

Because everything is outsized with the Leafs, the idea that they’ve been coughing up genuine chances at the Stanley Cup year-after-year has grown at the rate and scale of The Blob. Being the Leafs, everything around them is audibly multiplied by at least 12, so the sheer volume that is emitted from the Greater…Read more...

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we make fun of famous (and non-famous!) people who have done stupid things. And May did not disappoint.

The New York Rangers are the historic gold standard for futility in the NHL, having gone 54 years without winning the Stanley Cup until finally getting the job done in 1994 (see Mark Messier with the Cup above) — after decades of being taunted with “1940” chants in enemy arenas.

It’s Memorial Day, which means it’s time for the NFL and the right to start co-opting the life and death of Pat Tillman, a former safety for the Arizona Cardinals who passed on a $3.6 million deal to enlist in the Army after 9/11. Rarely mentioned is Tillman’s brother, Kevin, who left the Cleveland Indians farm system…Read more...

Naomi Osaka is wrong.