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For European teams, the lack of opportunities to actually win a trophy can muddy the results they do get. There’s only a trophy on offer every two years (when there isn’t a pandemic), and perhaps Spain at the beginning of the last decade altered our perception of what’s success and what isn’t.

Just over 20 years ago, Caron Butler accepted a scholarship offer to play basketball for legendary coach Jim Calhoun at UConn, a college hoops power. He was a top talent with a future on the hardwood ahead of him. But behind him trailed a sordid past of multiple arrests, and a host of “serious mistakes” he readily…Read more...

Even apparel makers think the Detroit Lions are losers.

It’s hard to think of a series the past few years that has been more anticipated than Avalanche-Golden Knights. Rarely do the two best teams in the NHL meet up before the third round, or more likely at all given the vagaries of hockey. But with the divisional setup this year, it was going to be hard for these two to…Read more...

There are about 400 lessons that fans could have learned about the U.S. Men’s National team last night. And they spread over the entire spectrum of endless hope of things we’ve never imagined to complete and total disaster we’re sadly all too familiar with. Projecting this team into the future, because of all that…Read more...

It’s that time of year again for Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.

As the great urban philosopher Calvin Broadus — otherwise known as Snoop Dogg — once said, “There are two things in life you can’t play with. This Boxing, and this pimpin’.”

A few weeks ago, former NFL tight end Greg Olsen outlined a nightmarish scenario for any parent. After eight years of life with a heart condition, Olsen’s son, T.J., had a heart that was “reaching its end.” Olsen added that the next step could be a heart transplant.

Welcome to the Ladies Room - A Deadspin Sports Podcast.

Roger Federer withdrew from the French Open yesterday, which put the tournament in an awkward spot. Federer has only played six matches in a year or so, thanks to the pandemic and double knee surgery and rehab. After a near four-hour match in the third round where he really had to slog through a tepid performance, and…Read more...

The worm has turned in L.A.

The CONCACAF Nations League isn’t really supposed to be anything. It’s something of a cheap mockery of Europe’s Nations League, which was really only conjured to get rid of meaningless friendlies in years between major competitions. So, even that’s not really a thing. The CONCACAF version is basically a copy of a copy.

As everyone knows by now, Julio Jones is going to be a Tennessee Titan.Read more...

While the teeth-gnashing on these shores during the last World Cup were enough to drown out the laments of everyone else in the world, you may have forgotten that a true giant of the international game wasn’t in Russia either. That would be Italy, the first time they didn’t partake in the tournament since 1958. In…Read more...

The hottest “rivalry” in sports is between two young golfers who have been trading jabs online. But now, one may want the PGA to step in.

This Game 7 is huge for Luka Dončić.Read more...

Weeks ago, I went against my instincts, and what years of facts had told me, to buy in with the Carolina Hurricanes. What I couldn’t have predicted was that they would be so desperate to return to their nature, like some leaden blanky.

For the past few years, Oklahoma State catcher Raquel Dominguez has stepped out of the dugout to dance behind her coach, Kenny Gajewski, during mid-game interviews. She did so again last night during what would become the deciding game of a series against Florida State. Call me crazy, but this is more entertaining…Read more...

Jon Rahm is a professional golfer, which means that he spends a good amount of his life traveling, a lot of time on airplanes and in hotels and other common areas where a lot of people mass and spread germs.

James Harden left Game 1 of the Nets-Bucks series in the first minute, after aggravating the hamstring injury that cost him 21 games during the regular season. Steve Nash doesn’t know whether Harden will be available for Game 2 — either way, the former MVP’s health coming into question reshapes everything about the…Read more...

It’s no big deal if Tom Brady isn’t familiar with anyone on the team, and he was just glad to agree to serve as the Bolts’ “fan captain” for Saturday’s Game 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes. It’s also hilarious to see the big-time Cameo video energy that Brady brought to the table to fire up the Tampa crowd.

About a month ago, the Jarred Kelenic era officially began in Seattle. In his second game in the big leagues, Kelenic went 3-for-4 with three extra-base hits including a dinger, and the baseball world — including myself — went wild...like Bear Grylls wild. However, perhaps declaring Kelenic the next great Mariner was…Read more...

Oops, they did it again.

Eventually, there’s an important question that needs to be answered, but for now, this is simply really cool.Read more...

Over the past 15 years, the tightest betting odds Floyd Mayweather has had for one of his fights has been -190 during his 2007 middleweight title bout with “The Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya.Read more...

The Canadiens sure did learn their lesson from Game 1 against the Jets: don’t try to score an empty-net goal, because that apparently is justification for trying to remove someone’s head from his body.

If you were watching Game 6 of Clippers-Mavericks on Friday night, you heard about a hundred times how there’s never been a series in the NBA where the road team won the first six games — until now, since Los Angeles notched a 104-97 victory behind 45 points from Kawhi Leonard.

No unseeded team had ever won its first two games at the Women’s College World Series, so James Madison’s second straight triumph in Oklahoma City was historic in its own right on Friday night.

Even with a banged-up Joel Embiid, the Sixers took care of Russ, Beal, and the Wizards in Game 5 of their first-round series. The team was looking forward to their first game against the Atlanta Hawks. Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey, however, was looking forward to the offseason.Read more...

The NBA has a superstar that not enough people talk about as being in the top tier of league talents, but last night he showcased that he belongs. On the road, to close out the defending champions, Devin Booker went ballistic — he dropped 47 points (a playoff career-high), 11 rebounds, eight three-pointers, was 15/22…Read more...

Nowadays, it seems like every baseball player under the sun has been an All-Star at some point in their careers. In 2019, there were four AL second basemen selected for the Midsummer Classic. FOUR! In total, there were 75 players awarded All-Star recognition in 2019. In 2018, 73 players were named All-Stars, including …Read more...

Two weeks ago, we learned that former NFL tight end Greg Olsen and his family were in a very painful spot — their 8-year-old son T.J. was in need of a heart transplant. T.J.’s heart, wrote Olsen, “is reaching its end.”Read more...

Shame on the Los Angeles Lakers.

Since we found out that Mike Krzyzewski was retiring after this upcoming season on Wednesday, the Duke head coach has been the lead story throughout the sports world. At the age of 74, the G.O.A.T. has decided to hang it up.

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.