Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Every year, the NBA releases the first round of All-Star Game fan voting as a way to drum up excitement for its yearly showcase of the best players in the league. This season’s first batch of voting holds few surprises; among the top vote-getters are LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Steph Curry, and... Derrick Rose.

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Kawhi Leonard played in San Antonio last night for the first time since being traded from the Spurs to the Raptors, and he was booed heartily every time he touched the ball. The home crowd even whipped up enough bile to hit him with a “Traitor!” chant while he was shooting free throws. Leonard, somehow, seems to think…Read more...

Somewhere along the way, Alex Ovechkin went from “holy shit, that guy can score” to “holy shit, that guy can still score” without even a hint of a drop-off in between. He’s 33 years old now, which is generally well past a forward’s prime, and it just doesn’t seem to matter. The only real difference is that every…Read more...

How will you track your New Year’s fitness resolutions without a wearable device that tracks your runs, your heart rate, and how often you stand up? Today only, Amazon’s blowing out a bunch of refurbished Apple Watches, from the Series 1 (which was actually the second model), to the Series 2 (which added a faster…Read more...

There are perfectly good reasons to root against both the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets. The Warriors have Kevin Durant and Draymond Green and are a juggernaut; the Rockets have James Harden and Chris Paul and play maybe the least interesting brand of basketball of any worth-a-shit NBA team. The thing…Read more...

The Rockets and Warriors were tied at 132 with less than a minute left in overtime Thursday night when Kevin Durant lost control of the ball in the paint and chased it into the corner. Here’s what happened:Read more...

Scene-munching referee Karl Hess worked a Samford-East Tennessee State overtime game Thursday night, eventually won by ETSU, 81–72. Hess, you may recall, was shitcanned by the ACC in January 2015 after an ugly taunt of a former Wake Forest board of trustees chairman broke the camel’s back, but he’s been working for…Read more...

Well that was decisive. The home crowd was bloodthirsty, the Spurs were aggressive as hell, and the Raptors were evidently not ready for all the intensity. Kawhi’s ballyhooed return to San Antonio was mostly a big old dud, and the Raptors were routed, by the score of 125–107.Read more...

Spurs fans wasted no time ending the mystery of how Kawhi Leonard would be received in San Antonio in his first post-trade visit, booing the shit out of him every time he touched the ball during pregame warmups. The Spurs were reportedly on the fence about showing a Kawhi tribute video tonight, concerned about the…Read more...

NBC Sports’ NBA insider Tom Haberstroh makes the case that the Pelicans have failed Anthony Davis and seems to imply that the organization’s chances of bringing back the generational talent have grown rather slim. While he goes through a bunch of factors that show just how mediocre the franchise has been over the…Read more...

Even before a stress fracture brought teenage giant Bol Bol’s short, eventful college career to an abrupt end, things have been incredibly bleak for Pac-12 men’s basketball this year. There have been dumb scandals (the dull kind, not the fun kind), disappointments, and most of all, a bunch of sad losses. If a team…Read more...

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The Bol Bol era at Oregon might be over before it could really ever begin. The 7-foot-2 Ducks center, who hadn’t played since Dec. 12, could be done for the season with a stress fracture in his left foot, as first reported by 247 Sports’ Matt Prehm.Read more...

After one half, Manchester City leads Liverpool, 1-0, in a game that may all but decide the Premier League title The Reds are surely kicking themselves in the locker room after missing this chance to take the early lead.

Isn’t Beto O’Rourke so cool? He skateboards! He loves burgers! He listens to The Clash!

Over the weekend, the Dora High School boys basketball team won a local tournament through a 64-62 nail-biter in the final over Licking High School. Their win, however, was not without controversy. Parents from Licking accused Dora coach Rick Luna of using a secret and illegal tactic: swapping his three triplet sons (…Read more...

So, yesterday, hilariously inept* conservative politics flack and weird cable news creature Liz Mair did, and later deleted, a very bad tweet:Read more...

This past June, the Tacoma Rainiers brought reindeer mascot Rhubarb and local icon “Epic Sax Gorilla” up onto the roof of Cheney Stadium, where the Triple-A club plays, for a routine crowd-pleasing stunt. Also up on the roof was Tacoma News Tribune columnist Matt Driscoll, who recently explained how roof dancing…Read more...

After the federal government shut down on Dec. 21, National Parks Service workers were furloughed, but Yosemite National Park did not close. In fact, it is currently more open than ever, with the $35 park access fee waived and entrance booths bearing a “Pass On Thru” sign. People are indeed passing on thru, to truly…Read more...

The Hillsborough County (Fla.) State Attorney’s Office has dropped the domestic violence case against inside linebacker Reuben Foster, according to online court records. The news was first reported by TMZ. You can see the notice of termination below, dated Jan. 2.Read more...

There isn’t a whole lot going on in Vermilion, Ohio in the winter.

Is Lonzo Ball good? Ask a handful of NBA fans that question and you’re likely to get wildly different answers. Some will say “yes” and cite footage of the 6-foot-6 point guard who glides around the court and fires off touch passes and looks built to spend the next decade racking up triple-doubles. Those who say “no”…Read more...

It is a matter of public record where Drew Magary, the beloved honking prince of this website, lands on the question of pancakes. The big dog is pro-flapjack without apology, and our boy likes them large. But while Drew is recovering well from his post-Deadspin Awards injury, he was not in the studio for the recording…Read more...

LED strip lights, Clipa2, Cellucor and Scivation Supplement Gold Box, and a 4K TV lead off Thursday’s best deals.Read more...

Having a signature celebration opens Lance Stephenson up to humiliation. (Being Lance Stephenson, generally, also opens him up to humiliation.) Just before halftime in the Thunder’s win over the Lakers Wednesday night, Paul George stripped his former Pacers teammate, fought him off as he clamored to get the ball back,…Read more...

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It’s become a bit of a monthly tradition for me to update y’all on the ongoing heroics of Vancouver Canucks rookie Elias Pettersson, and thankfully, he’s already made his January worth talking about. In his very first showing of 2019, the 20-year-old Swede carried the Canucks to a 4-3 overtime victory over the…Read more...

One thing I think we can all agree on is that one of the most enjoyable things about watching basketball is seeing guys jump real high and do cool stuff while they are in the air. But what if, in fact, the jumping is bad?

When last we left the Bryce Harper Derby ... absolutely nothing was happening, or so we were led to believe. The 26-year-old superstar outfield has been taking his time, sitting on (as far as we know) a single formal offer, $300 million over 10 years, from the Washington Nationals. The offer was made while the regular…Read more...

The new year always means great deals on protein powders and supplements, so it’s worth stocking up for a full year now, if only to motivate yourself to keep working out. Today only in the Gold Box, Amazon’s offering a 30% or more off a huge variety of Cellucor and Scivation products, so your wallet can keep making…Read more...

The Grizzlies lost to the Detroit Pistons Wednesday night, 101–94. It was an ugly, frustrating performance for a Memphis team that has now lost 10 of their last 13 games after a promising 15–9 start to the season. The angst and frustration appears to have boiled over in a team meeting held after the game:Read more...

Giants general manager and ornery math-hater Dave Gettleman did his year-end press conference on Wednesday. Predictably, the questions tended to angle for information about the team’s quarterback situation, where Eli Manning has become a tomato can while somehow also putting up one of the more conventionally solid…Read more...

Since the Steelers drafted Antonio Brown before the 2010 season, he’s averaged 93 receptions, 1,245 receiving yards, and more than eight touchdowns a season. He’s led the league in receptions twice; he’s led the league in yards twice; he’s made the Pro Bowl seven times; he’s been a first-team All-Pro four times. The…Read more...

Bad news for all those Boogerheads out there: ESPN will not be utilizing Booger McFarland’s whimsical and obnoxiously large contraption for this weekend’s Colts-Texans wild-card playoff game. The Booger Mobile’s aspirations for world domination have hit a snag.Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.Read more...

A bronze statue of Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo was unveiled at his Pestana CR7 hotel in Funchal Portugal in 2014, and, ever since, the figure’s monumental bulge has been diligently polished by the caresses of frisky tourists.

The international sports cartel better known as the IOC released its annual statement about the year that was and what’s to come in 2019 and it’s very much like the IOC itself: bloated, self-congratulatory, and devoid of substance.

ESPN announced today that it will be running a year-long feature “on every platform” that is meant to act as a celebration of college football. The introductory story, written by ESPN senior writer Ivan Maisel starts like this:Read more...

I woke up this morning to find an ornament had fallen and shattered into a dozen or so pieces at the foot of my already wilted and dying Christmas tree. I swept up the shards and a mess of needles, returned the broom to the closet, and was immediately nailed on the head by its handle, which had sprung back at me from…Read more...

Kawhi Leonard buried the Jazz under the most assaultive offensive output of his career on Tuesday, hanging an alarmingly efficient 45 points on 16-of-22 shooting in a 122-116 win. The Raptor-for-now ascended to a higher plane in his 19-point third quarter, sinking every shot he attempted. He did all his damage inside…Read more...

Louisville Metro Police Officer Deidre Mengedoht was killed during a traffic stop right before Christmas, when her cruiser was rammed by a truck driver, who was later charged with murder and operating a vehicle under the influence. On a Dec. 29 broadcast, WPSD’s Brianna Clark reported on her funeral and ended up…Read more...

The Houston Rockets—who this season have been dead, not dead, and dead again—are decidedly no longer dead. Since getting spit-roasted by Luka Dončić, Houston has gone 10-1, with the lone loss a two-point squeaker in Miami. Chris Paul tweaked his hamstring, again, in that game, yet it hasn’t mattered pretty much at…Read more...

The days are no longer getting shorter and darker, and began to bounce back in the right direction a few days before Christmas. There is still a lot of winter left, though, and given the way that the MLB offseason just kind of never got around to happening last year, it’s hard to know when things will actually get…Read more...

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s primary offensive strategy is to run at the rim as rapidly as possible and then use his condor arms to get the ball as close to the hoop as he can before just kind of depositing it into the rim. Sometimes he doesn’t even need to move to cram it home, because he’s got arms like an octopus. He’s…Read more...

On Wednesday, Premier League giants Chelsea purchased Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund for an astronomical €64 million (nearly $73 million). After finishing out this season in Germany, the winger will officially become a member of one of the biggest clubs in the world, in the best league in the world, this…Read more...

You are perfect the way you are. But if you want some extra motivation to jumpstart a more active lifestyle in 2019, the Fitbit Charge 3 can help.Read more...

Longtime pro wrestling interviewer “Mean” Gene Okerlund died today, WWE announced. He was 76.Read more...

Cartoon steam billowed out of every player’s ears towards the end of a spicy 119-113 Sixers win over the Clippers Tuesday night. Joel Embiid and Patrick Beverley had to be pried apart in a meeting of master trolls; Jimmy Butler and Avery Bradley then got a double-ejection for some choke-pushing. Earlier on, there was…Read more...

You’ll be more likely to stick with your New Year’s fitness resolutions if you have a gym in your home, and don’t have to drag yourself anywhere, and it’s more affordable than you might think with today’s Amazon Gold Box.