Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Welcome to the Ladies Room - A Deadspin Sports Podcast.

It almost feels like the Clippers are being euthanized for the second straight year. Much like Kevin Durant did this postseason, Paul George just ran out of gas trying to make up for what wasn’t there.

Welcome to another action-packed edition of Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! From anti-vax nonsense to “sticky stuff” stupidity to Florida, we’re your one-stop shop for schadenfreude in and around the world of professional athletics. So, with that in mind, let’s offer a quick round of applause to one special spectator…Read more...

Perhaps I should save this until after we see how the NBA Finals pan out. If Chris Paul doesn’t get his ring, everything that’s been said about him before he clinched his first appearance in the Finals, after the Suns blew out the Clippers, 130-103, last night, could be trotted back out (and he clinched it just about…Read more...

Update (7/1/21): It has arrived! Check out Megan Rapinoe on The Ladies Room podcast here.Read more...

I haven’t thought about disc sports since I graduated college. I’ve played disc golf twice, and both times I lost several of my partner’s discs. It just isn’t the sport for me. But, by George, this clip of James Conrad sinking a birdie to force a playoff gets me hyped to get back out there and try again.

In the history of random people trying (or fake-trying) professional fighters on the street, the average observer is still somehow usually surprised at how quickly it goes bad.Read more...

Back before the whole “sticky stuff” scandal came to the foreground of Major League Baseball, Josh Donaldson tweeted out that he had “an entire catalog of video” of pitcher’s cheating that he was planning on releasing.

We’ve reached the quarterfinals of Euro 2020(1), which is when fans of the countries still in contention really start dreaming, and the rest realize that fucking-off-of-work time is probably going to run out with only three Monday-Friday match days left (#DayDrinkingIsForAllSeasons). For the teams that remain, all it…Read more...

As discussed last week, the FIBA men’s basketball Olympic Qualifiers are underway this week and will run through July 4, determining each of the final four teams that will compete in Tokyo this summer.Read more...

Less is more, even if it causes you to leave money on the table.

Game 6 tonight is the most important game of Chris Paul’s career.

The sign looked like a joke.

It’s easy to believe the Los Angeles Clippers can’t do the impossible.Read more...

Charles Barkley can be lazy and out of touch, and occasionally insightful, but he nailed it with the Bucks last night. That’s after he forgot who Jeff Teague plays for, which would seem to be the minimum requirement for his job. Anyway, at halftime, when the Bucks were down 20 to a Trae Young-less Hawks team, he said…Read more...

Y’see, the thing is, Trail Blazers, you can’t play-act being some sort of feminist champion organization for five minutes, just long enough to get people to notice, and then hope it all goes away when your credentials on that prove to be thinner than a playing card. You can’t dip your toe into these issues to give the…Read more...

Earlier this year, NBA star Draymond Green courted the wrath of female athletes and fans of women’s sports everywhere by suggesting that pro women’s leagues haven’t done enough to court corporate dollars, adding that they can’t complain about the pay gap between men and women’s pro sports until they do. Green’s…Read more...

“Kyle Schwarber is a powerhouse!” says the Cubs fan after Schwarber’s first season in the bigs.Read more...

Tennis fans don’t like to think about the day, even if we can bring ourselves to admit that it will arrive. The opening rounds of Wimbledon are certainly just about the furthest distance from picturing the day when Serena Williams and Roger Federer won’t be playing anymore. This is where they’ve strutted best, after…Read more...

Mookie Betts was asked earlier this year, before the Major League Baseball season began, about taking the vaccine.Read more...

At the start of Stage 4 of the Tour de France, riders dismounted their bikes and stopped the race for a full minute to protest for safer racing conditions.Read more...

The 2021 NFL Draft class was filled to the brim with elite cornerback prospects. Nine were selected in the first two rounds, yet still after the first 64 picks, several talented DBs remained available. Among the names not yet called was Stanford corner, and two-time All-Pac 12 defender, Paulson Adebo.Read more...

Gay people have been around a lot longer than football. But don’t tell the NFL that, as “gay” has become the latest bandwagon the league has jumped on after short stints of acting as if it cares about social and racial justice, breast cancer, and patriotism.Read more...

John Collins has a point.

Trade season is underway in baseball, with the Blue Jays acquiring Adam Cimber and Corey Dickerson from the Marlins, while the White Sox pursue Diamondbacks infielder Eduardo Escobar. The deadline is back to its usual date of July 31 this year, and over the next month, plenty of teams will try to patch holes on their…Read more...

It’s Trash Talking Tuesday and today I’m trashing all the cry baby pitchers mad that MLB wants them to stop cheating.Read more...

Yesterday, we dove into the very nature of Spain. How its championship pedigree is still around, but how the frustrating, and at times incomprehensible, frailties that surrounded that glorious era are in their DNA, too. And you’ll see all of them in the same match. They can’t help it. It’s who they are. They can’t run…Read more...

I don’t know where you live, but it’s been hot as hell in New York. And that’s led to some not feeling so hot.

The Stanley Cup Final kicked off, and while most news outlets spend the majority of their coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning whining about their salary cap, and not their roster building or coaching which allows them to do things like have Nikita Kucherov miss the season and still be fine. John Cooper behind the…Read more...

It’ll take two more wins for it to really matter. And you can certainly say things bent toward Paul George to give him this platform. The Jazz had their injuries and problems. Kawhi Leonard got hurt, leaving the Clippers not much choice but to give George the keys and the blueprints. You still have to make the most of…Read more...

Here’s Shohei Ohtani — currently tied with Vlad Guerrero Jr. for the MLB lead in home runs with 26 — ethering yet another baseball in his first ever at-bat at Yankee Stadium:Read more...

I’ve been using the term “Spain’ing” a lot during Euro 2020, harkening back to the era before Spain was drenched in medals, where they would always squander any tournament despite fielding one of the most talented squads. They could find any way to lose back then, whether through simple malaise, or leaky defense, or…Read more...

Gwen Berry is a patriot.Read more...

Scottie Pippen just called Phil Jackson a racist.

TO has still got it.

The Montreal Canadiens aren’t quite as chained to their history and tradition as the rest of the hockey world (including yours truly) likes to joke about. They can never escape it, and nor should they. it’s the MONTREAL CANADIENS, for fuck’s sake. But the drawn-out pregame ceremonies and insistence on being at the…Read more...

It wasn’t supposed to be this way for the Yankees. The pundits proclaimed 2021 could be their year. But it’s just not.Read more...

Spain benefitted in their last group game from Slovakia’s Martin Dubravka throwing the ball into his own net, so clearly frustrated at Spain’s inability to find the area between the posts that he felt there was no choice but to show them how easy it could be. People in sports love to say these things even out over a…Read more...

Back in the mid-2000s, long before she would eventually get the GM position she so desperately deserved, Kim Ng’s name used to pop up in every single GM search. “Oh, (insert MLB team name)? They’re interviewing this guy, that guy, this guy over here, and Kim Ng.”

The Bucks are an interesting team.

It’s easier for me to lower my standards. I’m a cisgender male, and never been sexually assaulted. I shouldn’t, and it’s just the path of lesser resistance, but it happens. So when it comes to coverage from networks or major websites or newspapers of athletes whose involvement in sexual assault is known, I can live…Read more...

It wasn’t so long ago that the European Championships were kind of perfect, in that it all made sense. Only 16 teams made it, which is just about the same amount of European teams that make the World Cup, so rarely were there true no-hopers in the draw. Four groups of four meant teams couldn’t duck each other, and…Read more...

Kevin “K’Von” Huerter has been a revelation for the Hawks on this playoff run.

It’s probably a story that you’ve heard a million times by now if you have any sports leanings, but it needs emphasizing. In the spring of 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks were the center of Chicago. Not just Chicago sports, but Chicago. It was a meteoric and shocking rise, simply because three years before that, most of…Read more...

There’s a reason the NBA altered its style of play to allow for more scoring.

First off, I want everyone to know that I know that neither Randy Arozarena nor Adolis Garcia were pieces in St. Louis’s trade for the former Rockies’ third baseman. This is merely a hypothetical question. Both of the young up-and-comers started their professional baseball careers within the St. Louis Cardinals…Read more...

As the NBA playoffs continue, 24 national teams across the world are vying for the final four open men’s basketball Olympic berths. The tournaments will run from June 29 through July 4 in Canada, Croatia, Serbia, and Lithuania.Read more...

North Carolina State baseball had the unthinkable happen to them prior to yesterday’s game against Vanderbilt. With a trip to the national championship on the line, the NCAA stepped in and notified the Wolfpack that several of their players — including two unvaccinated players — had tested positive for COVID, minutes…Read more...

One unlucky fan will have to live forever knowing they sparked an epic, but terrifying, pile-up at the Tour de France — just trying to cheer the riders on.Read more...

Is this like when LeBron James opted out of the dunk contest early on in his career? Maybe.