The Locker Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Here's a second-half NBA prediction: Intermittent switch-flipping
It felt like the NBA used to be a lot more consistent. The teams that were good in the regular season also were good in the postseason, for the most part, and if you looked and/or played like a scrub, you were usually dismissed like one. During this era, it’s almost as if you should wait to lay futu...
RIP the 12-team College Football Playoff
Hours after it was announced that the College Football Playoff would adopt a 5+7 format, the conference commissioners leaked that 14- and 16-team formats have been discussed. Jim Phillips, ACC commissioner and captain of a drowning vessel, said “At the end of the day, it’s about the right model.” Th...
Is Bill Belichick’s gap year a post-dated suspension for Spygate?
The New England Patriots dynasty ended when Tom Brady left for Tampa Bay, but now it’s officially over as the Pats’ run is getting The Last Dance treatment. Yes, only a season past Bill Belichick’s departure, Apple+ has a nine-parter called The Dynasty coming out whenever. What they won’t tell you i...
Steph bests Sabrina in their 3-point shootout
The better player won. Steph Curry beat Sabrina Ionescu in their 3-point showdown at the NBA’s All-Star Skills contest last night, 29-26....
Ever wonder what an NBA game would look like, <i>Spiderman </i>style?
The NBA kicked off its All-Star weekend with a celebrity game where influencers, NFL players, and WNBA stars got to attempt the sport’s first-ever eight-point shot. But the real “innovation” for basketball came hours before Stephen A. and Shannon Sharpe’s teams took the LED court. ...
War on trans girls in sports grows; Uproar over Fanatics-made MLB jerseys; DC tells Leonsis to kiss off with arena bid
When I was in school, I had a friend who was a fantastic athlete (she still is). She was tall, thin, wore her hair short and could keep up with any of the guys in gym class and outperform 90 percent of them in just about any sport. She didn’t wear makeup and her wardrobe consisted mostly of gender-n...
Apparently you can get a college scholarship to play cornhole
Perhaps you’ve played cornhole during a backyard BBQ, or at a tailgate before a college or pro football game....
There is no aspect of baseball that MLB won’t make worse for a nickel
We know that MLB owners have no problem making their actual product worse, because it’s cheaper. They’ve expanded the playoffs, making more teams comfortable simply aiming for barely .500. Many teams will use the facade of a rebuild to never actually try, and others will join them to avoid signing a...
The war on trans girls in sports is going exactly the way we thought it would
When I was in school, I had a friend who was a fantastic athlete (she still is). She was tall, thin, wore her hair short and could keep up with any of the guys in gym class and outperform 90 percent of them in just about any sport. She didn’t wear makeup and her wardrobe consisted mostly of gender-n...
Finally, politicians tell a team owner to shove their new arena proposal
The stadium/arena swindle in pro sports has been going on for a couple decades now, but that kind of history couldn’t save Ted Leonsis’s plan for a new arena in Virginia for the Capitals and Wizards. Even with numerous studies and proof that publicly funded arenas or stadiums have no public benefit ...
Everyone’s good enough to lose to Patrick Mahomes
The big takeaway from Sunday night’s Super Bowl is that creep in your DMs might just be The Messiah. But then, that’s not really all that surprising, is it? Given what’s been done in his name lately? ...
Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton throws the ball off the glass in the most mundane way possible
Throwing a basketball off the backboard to yourself is quickly becoming a loophole. The latest NBA player to do it was Tyrese Haliburton, and he didn’t even do it to throw himself an alley-oop. The Indiana Pacers point guard picked up his dribble, almost double dribbled and then threw the ball off t...
Chip Kelly taking a consulting gig is exactly what a near-retiree would do
All the outrage over an old-ish head coach stepping down to take a cushy consulting/coordinating job is a little much. Chip Kelly going from head coach of the UCLA Bruins to running one of the most talented offenses in the country at Ohio State is exactly how I’d want to spend my twilight years if I...
Nikita Kucherov makes mockery of All-Star Weekend; Here's to Devin Hester; The Royals are finally spending?
There’s a fallacy out there that any All-Star Game is “for the fans.” That idea flew out the window long ago, especially for the NBA and NHL. The All-Star Game is merely a junket for the league’s biggest sponsors to get the chance to hobnob with the game’s top stars, a reward for their support of th...
In soccer, yellow mixed with orange now equals . . . blue?
There is a throughline to some joke about a player in the future being shown a blue card and then having an arduous and impatient wait to be released out of a penalty box/sin bin. I’m clearly too mature to make such a joke. ...
An ode to Devin Hester, one of the few things about the Bears you can't mock
I have to sit here throughout the football season, and now even a month afterwards, and read all the other jackasses on this staff say stuff about the Bears. None of them are from here, most of it’s wrong, and even if it’s correct what gives them the right? Everyone’s got a goddamn thought and none ...
Baseball Prospectus' 2024 projections have fan bases losing their minds
It’s easy to tell when there will be leather popping and maple and ash cracking on some distant Florida or Arizona field. No, it’s not the fact that it doesn’t quite get dark at 4 pm anymore. Not even Valentine’s Day or President’s Day. Nope, spring training is always around the corner when the PECO...
And the highest payroll in the AL Central goes to . . . the Kansas City Royals?
If there’s a surer sign that baseball has had a winter of discontent, at least for everyone outside the LA metro area, it’s that the highest payroll in the American League Central belongs to the Kansas City Royals. That’s after they inked star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. to an 11-year extension that’s ...
Nikita Kucherov exposed NHL All-Star weekend for the farce that it is
There’s a fallacy out there that any All-Star Game is “for the fans.” That idea flew out the window long ago, especially for the NBA and NHL. The All-Star Game is merely a junket for the league’s biggest sponsors to get the chance to hobnob with the game’s top stars, a reward for their support of th...
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is more powerful than the NCAA
In any drug kingpin story worth watching, there’s inevitably the scene where a policeman gets threatened or flat-out killed as a warning or retribution. Usually, it precedes and prompts the anti-hero’s downfall. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey more or less sent the NCAA a hand-written note with the nam...