November 8, 2013
Cousin Sal’s Week 10 Prop Bets
Week 9: -61,000 jermajesties Season: +34,500 jermajesties My sincerest apologies for Week 9. Let this be a lesson to everyone to never, ever underestimate Tampa Bay Bucs sixth-string running back Mike James again. James outran Chris Johnson by eight yards, costing me 70,000 jermajesties for my “most prolific rusher” play. (Would’ve paid 7/1.) One more […]
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NBA Regular-Season Championship Belt Game Alert: Warriors vs. Spurs
It’s Klay Day, fools. The belt currently belongs to Golden State, and tonight the Warriors face off against people-person Gregg Popovich and the Spurs. TITLE FIGHT NIGHT. This is basically an excuse to get you G’d up for tonight’s already awesome game, show you a picture of Klay Thompson adorned with a fake championship belt, […]
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Bad Cop and Bad, Bad Cop: Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane Take Over the Republic of Ireland National Team
For those of you who have given Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign a miss, you didn’t miss much. Ireland, under Giovanni Trappatoni, may have gotten within a Thierry Henry handball of the 2010 finals and qualified for last year’s European Championships (where they didn’t get out of the group stages), but the popular perception of […]
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NBA Betting Lines: The Jordan Crawford Special
When I started this column just two days ago, I had a vague yet visceral premonition that it would end like this. I knew that at some point between now and the NBA Finals, I would doubt our betting process, our logic, our gambling heart. I knew this would all end somewhere in Reno, maybe […]
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Mark Your Calendars: An Immersive Guide to the Week in College Hoops
College basketball is back, and life finally makes sense again. Questions like “Where did all my money go?” and “Why am I such a disappointment?” and “How did I end up in this Dumpster?” no longer matter. Nothing matters, actually. Our salvation has arrived, and if you think I’m being overly dramatic, then you can […]
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Grantland NFL Podcast: Mailbag Questions and NFC Matchups
Robert Mays and Bill Barnwell break down the big matchups in the NFC this weekend after answering a few mailbag questions. You can listen to this podcast on the ESPN Podcenter here, or subscribe to the Grantland Sports podcast network on iTunes here and the Grantland NFL Podcast here.
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The Making of Medora: Indiana High School Basketball and a Friendship Between a Filmmaker and His Subject
On a bright and cold afternoon almost exactly three years ago, I climbed onto a school bus with my camera and tripod. Staring back at me were 15 sullen high school boys. This was my first day filming a documentary, Medora, about a tiny, dwindling town in Indiana and its high school basketball team, the […]
Read moreThe Jalen Rose Report With David Jacoby (With Video!)
Jalen Rose and David Jacoby are back! In this episode, they break down the early results in the NBA season and suggest that Dwight Howard could use some therapy. Listen to the podcast at the ESPN.com Podcenter. Subscribe to the Grantland Sports Network on iTunes. To subscribe to the Jalen Rose Report, click here.
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Text Messages to the New Orleans Pelican: Your Beak Looks Like It’s for Delivering Death
The New Orleans Pelican is a [something] with a cell phone so I sent [him/her/it] some text messages. Me: Um, hey. It’s Shea. From Houston. Pelican: Oh hi Me: So let’s just get out in front of this: This is weird for me. Pelican: How’s that? Me: texting a pelican. I’ve never done it before. […]
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NHL Grab Bag: Blackhawks Couple Raise Bar for In-Game Pardying
Welcome to a weekly grab bag of thoughts and observations from the past few days and/or decades of NHL hockey. The Three Stars of Comedy Recognizing the NHL personalities from around the league who produced the most comedic fodder for fans. The third star: Joffrey Lupul elbows his own teammate Here’s Lupul trying to deliver […]
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We Went There: Dwightmare on Polk Street
What the hell was that? What was supposed to be a grudge match featuring the league’s highest profile free agent leading the league’s most rapidly ascendant team to a victory over his depleted former team turned out to be a nightmare in Houston. It was an ugly exposé of what might be gaping holes in […]
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We Went There: No. 5 Stanford 26, No. 3 Oregon 20
That hypothetical we posed yesterday, about whether it’d be more painful to be knocked out of the running for the national title by an outright loss or by the cruelty of polls and unfeeling computers and the glaring lack of a playoff system? Following a nasty pair of prime-time top-10 weeknight games, two of the […]
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About Last Night: The Cardinal Way
In case you were out realizing the road less traveled is less traveled because it goes to Buffalo, here’s what you missed in sports on Thursday: Baylor’s speed was too much for Oklahoma as the Bears throttled the Sooners, 41-12, in Waco. “They say speed kills, and it did a number on us here tonight,” […]
Read moreNovember 7, 2013
Boogie Gets Busy, Bargs Goes Airborne: A Quick Check-in With the Triangle All-Stars
We won’t do a full update and make Tri-Stars roster changes — a.k.a. the Viking funeral for Bargs — until the beginning of next month, but because sports news is a little heavy this week, it feels like the right time to look to the People’s Dream Team to brighten the spirits. A few highlights […]
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Week 10 Fantasy Football Preview: Don’t Play With Fire, Run With Scissors, or Start Seneca Wallace
As the days grow shorter, my fantasy team’s playoff hopes grow slimmer. The trade deadline is a week from tomorrow, and as I begin to accept my squad’s doomed fate, I’m faced with an ethical dilemma for the ages. Do I unload my few remaining healthy studs — Cam Newton, Matt Forte, and Josh Gordon […]
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Zaza Pachulia Is Buying the Bucks’ Court. No, Seriously.
It has been a weird start to the season for the perpetually funky Milwaukee Bucks. Five rotation players are dealing with injuries, including Brandon Knight, the team’s most important offseason acquisition. One of those players, LARRY SANDERS!, is under investigation for his possible role in a nightclub brawl that may have involved people getting hit […]
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CourtVision: The Revenge of Monta Ellis
The ridicule has trailed him for years, in out-of-town gyms and on the NBA’s snarkiest message boards. Perhaps no player has been mocked more than Monta Ellis. He shoots too much; he has never met a jumper he didn’t like; he’s a ball hog; he’s a volume shooter with an efficiency problem. I myself have […]
Read moreDERRICK COLEMAN WEARING A GEORGETOWN JACKET THROWBACK PHOTO ALERT
Throwback Thursday Me In A Georgetown Starter Jacket pic.twitter.com/OJyUF5jBPP — Derrick Coleman (@44TheLegend) November 7, 2013 JIM BOEHEIM WEPT. (h/t Mike Meech)
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Don’t Bother Trying to Grade Baseball’s New Managerial Hires
If the athletic director at a major university fires his head football coach, that AD instantly knows what he needs to find: a man in his 30s, 40s, or 50s with experience in the game, an affinity for khakis, and enough psychological damage to be the kind of megalomaniacal, domineering, workaholic lunatic who populates the […]
Read moreGrantland Channel Video: Wale and Jalen Rose
Wale opens up to Jalen Rose about his once-promising career as a college running back, his career as a hip-hop artist, and why no elite professional athletes choose to play in Washington, D.C. For this episode of the Jalen Rose Report With Wale, click here.
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Champions League Pass & Move: Taking a Chance on Chances
A look back at the week’s Champions League action. United’s Lack of Ambition Mike L. Goodman: It’s not that Manchester United didn’t create much on the road against a mediocre Real Sociedad team that fans should find alarming. It’s the fact that manager David Moyes seems pretty OK with it. After the game, his comments […]
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NBA Shootaround: Setting the Pace
So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is back to help you keep track of it all. You’ll find takes on moments you might’ve missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever. The Undefeated Kirk Goldsberry: Bulls-Pacers games are always slow and plodding affairs, but that doesn’t mean they […]
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College Basketball’s New (and Necessary) Growing Pains
Last May, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee met with a chance to rescue college basketball from its ongoing doldrums. The aesthetic quality of the sport had hit rock bottom, with scoring dropping to its lowest levels since the 1951-52 season, according to the NCAA record book (page 44 [PDF]). An NCAA press release, and […]
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About Last Night: The Perfect Pacers
In case you were busy telling one of your employees to hit another one of your employees to settle an interpersonal workplace dispute, here’s what you missed in sports on Wednesday: A fourth-quarter surge from the Pacers’ reserves turned a close game between division rivals into a blowout, as Indiana ran away from the Bulls […]
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