Rajon Rondo has some history with the Dallas Mavericks, and that much is not lost on Mavs owner Mark Cuban.
Appearing Thursday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Cuban had funny trash talk for Rondo ahead of Mavs’ first-round series against Rondo’s LA Clippers.
“I hope he shoots a lot,” said Cuban of Rondo. “I hope he takes more shots than any guy on the team from outside the paint.”
Rondo, of course, had a disastrous tenure with the Mavs in 2014-15. He openly clashed with coach Rick Carlisle and even almost retired because of how awful his time in Dallas went. Still, Cuban also said in the interview that Rondo’s Mavs stint was “in the past” and that the veteran point guard “is a good dude.”
Rondo has historically been known as a shaky jump shooter and only has a 32.3 three-point percentage for his career. But Cuban should still be careful what he wishes for. Keep in mind that “Playoff Rondo” is a very real thing.
Bam Adebayo appeared to react on Twitter to his Defensive Player of the Year snub.
The NBA on Thursday announced finalists for the regular season awards.
The three finalists for Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) were: Rudy Gobert, Ben Simmons and Draymond Green.
Adebayo sent the following one-word tweet in response:
The 23-year-old Miami Heat center is averaging 1.2 steals and 1.0 blocks per game this season. His defensive rating is 109.6. The Heat recently launched a campaign for him to win DPOY, which factors into the disappointment of him not being a finalist. Additionally, Adebayo would receive a pay bump for winning the award, so not being a finalist hurts.
Lindsey Vonn is dating someone new after her recent breakup with PK Subban.
Vonn is dating actor Diego Osorio, who is also the founder of a tequila company. Page Six shared photos of the two walking together in New York City.
Vonn, 36, was previously dating Subban. She and Subban began dating in 2018 and got engaged a year later. The two announced their breakup in December.
Vonn has also dated Tiger Woods.
The former skier has won a gold medal and two bronzes at the Olympics during her skiing career. She announced her retirement in 2019 due to injuries.
Danica Patrick will be a part of this year’s Indy 500, only she will have a different role from usual.
Patrick was announced on Wednesday as the driver of the pace car. She will be driving a Corvette Stingray.
Patrick, 39, began her pro career as an IndyCar driver. She had a career-high third-place finish at the 2009 Indy 500 and won the 2008 Indy Japan 300. Patrick later began driving stock cars in 2010, where she competed until 2018.
Patrick broke up with ex-boyfriend Aaron Rodgers last summer and has since begun dating someone new.
Tom Brady has his eyes on one specific game in the NFL schedule, just like so many of us.
The Buccaneers posted a photo on their Instagram story of Brady and included a graphic of the Bucs and New England Patriots, who will play on Oct. 3.
Brady reposted the graphic and added an eyes emoji, to show he has his eyes on it.
How could anyone not get excited about the game? This is Brady’s chance for revenge against Bill Belichick and the Patriots. This is the kind of game that inspires a player to train harder and with more focus.
Brady got the first advantage on his former team by winning the Super Bowl last season. You know he would love to get another advantage in the head-to-head game.
As for fan excitement surrounding the game, well, here is what the ticket prices are looking like.
The Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski Tampa party continues! Treat yourself or a friend with this great Tampa Fiesta shirt. You can buy it here.
The Miami Heat scuffled a bit during the regular season and enter the playoffs as the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference. That isn’t denting Jimmy Butler’s confidence one bit.
The Heat star had a warning for potential foes when speaking Thursday, suggesting he’s in the right mental state to lead his team on a deep run.
“I think I’m stupidly locked in, I can tell you that,” Butler said, via Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “The amount of film that I watch, the amount of time that I spend on the court working on my game, trying to figure out where everybody’s going to be on the floor.”
Butler is one of the most motivated players in the game. He’s been trying to prep the Heat for this all season, and hasn’t been afraid to call them out after bad losses. The hope now is that all of that will pay off, as will the experience from last year’s run to the NBA Finals.
Miami’s first round opponents have already offered a pretty bold take for the series. You can bet that will only motivate Butler even more.
Bruce Arians has retired once as an NFL head coach. It doesn’t sound like he’s ready to do it again anytime soon.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach dismissed the notion that his future is tied to quarterback Tom Brady’s, suggesting that he intends to coach for the duration of his current five-year contract and possibly beyond.
“Oh yeah, that’s the plan. I don’t have any plans on retiring,” Arians told The Pewter Report podcast. “It’s just, when do I not want to go back to work? When I’m not excited about going back to work then I’m cheating somebody. I’m cheating the Glazer family, I’m cheating my players. Right now I can’t wait to get back to work. I don’t know when that’s going to happen, but no, I’m not tied to any players.”
Arians added that a potential Brady retirement wouldn’t necessarily lead him to follow suit, as he enjoys working with young quarterbacks as well.
“I could get extremely excited about having another young quarterback and going to war with one,” Arians added. “I’ll be honest with you. I’d be excited to take Blaine Gabbert to war because I love Blaine Gabbert. I think he is the most underrated player in the NFL. So yeah, when its not fun, then it will be time.”
Arians’ stance makes sense. He joined the Buccaneers with Jameis Winston as quarterback, long before Brady was even a pipe dream for the organization. Plus, the Buccaneers appear to have a new young quarterback that he likes a lot.
The 68-year-old Arians appears to be in good health. He has a contract through 2023, and it sounds like he won’t be departing before then.
The NBA got everything it wanted and then some on Wednesday with the play-in game between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers.
According to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, the Lakers-Warriors play-in drew 5.6 million viewers on ESPN, a staggering number that easily rates as the highest-rated game of the season. The numbers for the final portion of the game were even better, with the final minutes attracting over 6.1 million viewers.
For comparison’s sake, the NBA’s nationally-televised regular season broadcasts averaged 1.34 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch. The league’s opening week numbers, which were quite solid in their own right, were also dwarfed. Perhaps most remarkable is that the play-in game nearly topped the NBA All-Star Game, which averaged 5.9 million viewers.
The situation was certainly unique, as a battle between Stephen Curry and LeBron James was a dream matchup for the league in this scenario. The fact that the game lived up to the hype only made it better, and it’s a huge win that the ratings were as high as they were even with a late start time for East Coast viewers. Between this and the strong early returns from the less-hyped first set of play-in games, this new format is almost certainly here to stay.
Tony La Russa may not have had a problem with Minnesota Twins reliever Tyler Duffey throwing at one of his players, but Major League Baseball certainly did.
The league announced Thursday that Duffey has been suspended three games for throwing behind Chicago’s Yermin Mercedes on Tuesday. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli has also received a one-game ban.
There’s nothing surprising about this. Duffey was ejected for his actions, which came one game after Mercedes hit a home run off position player Willians Astudillo on a 3-0 count in a blowout win by the White Sox. That also led to something of a rift in the Chicago clubhouse, with manager Tony La Russa criticizing Mercedes and even siding with the Twins in how they handled the situation.
Duffey has a 4.40 ERA in 14.1 innings this season. He’s issued 10 walks, but the league definitely wasn’t buying that this was down to run-of-the-mill wildness.
Atlanta Hawks interim head coach Nate McMillan is taking a unique approach to motivating his players ahead of their playoff series against the New York Knicks, and his decision to share that tactic has resulted in a hefty fine.
In a Zoom call with reporters on Wednesday, McMillan said he has instilled an underdog mentality in his players by telling them no one wants them to win the series — including the NBA. McMillan believes the NBA wants the Knicks to make a deep postseason run because they play in a premier market and have not been to the playoffs in several years.
“Basically, I’ve gone as far as saying the league wants this,” McMillan said, via Peter Botte of the New York Post. “They need this, New York, this is a big market for the league, and New York has been out of the playoffs for a number of years. And this is a team that our league, they want to see — there’s a huge fan base — and they want to see New York in the playoffs.”
McMillan said the fact that the opening game of the series was moved to Sunday is proof that “everybody wants to see this,” including the NBA.
“So, yes, we have talked about that, about the advantages of this situation and some things that we’re going to have to face, with everyone picking New York to win and a lot of folks wanting to see New York in the playoffs,” the coach added. “It’s a battle, it’s a challenge, just playing New York, all that comes with it. … They’ve had a really good season, and I think the NBA is excited about having them back in the playoffs.”
The NBA did not appreciate McMillan insinuating that league officials and executives are rooting for one team over another. On Thursday, the NBA announced that McMillan has been fined $25,000 for “detrimental public comments asserting bias by the NBA.”
McMillan is not wrong. The Knicks are obviously a massive draw, and NBA ratings will reflect that if they make a deep playoff run. Heck, one of the league’s biggest stars even recently explained why he is happy to see the Knicks winning again. All that said, you can understand why the NBA can’t allow its coaches to publicly accuse the league of being biased.
