Disrupter Greg Norman is not the only one attached to LIV who will surely soon discover services are no longer requiredThe playing of a Presidents Cup, for so long the Ryder Cup’s poor relation, in Saudi Arabia now has to be on the table. The deal struck between LIV Golf and one-time rivals, the PGA and DP World Tours, is all about bang for buck.The Saudis will believe they have saved face by joining forces with golf’s establishment – there will be no more potentially embarrassing litigation – but their desperate bid to earn legitimacy via sport also means this deal has to work two ways. Continue reading...
After the Heat were outplayed and Jimmy Butler rendered all but irrelevant by the Nuggets in their NBA finals opener, Miami’s mission impossible is looking that much tougherMaybe it was the thin air. Perhaps it was fatigue in their 21st game since the end of the regular season. Or just an inevitable reversion towards normality for the postseason’s greatest overachievers.Whatever it was, it was quickly clear that anyone tuning in to the first game of the NBA finals on Thursday in the hope of witnessing a stirring mountain tale starring a brave band of odds-defying underdogs should have switched off the game and streamed The Sound of Music instead. Continue reading...
Beneath the mental fragility that led to the Sixers’ humiliating playoff exit is a gutless, joyless organization that is betraying their devoted fans. Only a scorched-earth rebuild will doSixers fans, answer me this: are you better off today than you were 10 years ago? It’s the same question posed by out-party politicians since time immemorial, but Sunday’s spectacular face-plant against the Boston Celtics that prompted Tuesday’s sacking of head coach Doc Rivers demands a far more wholesale inquest of Philadelphia’s once-proud basketball team. And the picture is not a pleasant one.With a three-games-to-two lead over their archrivals in the Eastern Conference semi-finals – needing one win from two cracks for the team’s first trip to the NBA’s final four in...
It turns out there were two winners in the Wembayama sweepstakes: the French teen hailed as the best NBA prospect since LeBron James could not have handpicked a better organization to develop his craftThe NBA draft is still more than a month away, but its biggest question has already been answered. After winning Tuesday night’s draft lottery, the San Antonio Spurs are almost certain to use this year’s No 1 pick to select teenage French basketball prodigy Victor Wembanyama. “Almost certain” is no exaggeration – according to oddsmakers at time of writing, a $100 wager on the Spurs to take Wembanyama with their pick would net the bettor just 50 cents.It’s easy to see why Wembanyama is a shoo-in to...
LeBron v Steph has been the defining rivalry of my basketball life. Their latest chapter did not disappoint, but it’s clear their special rivalry is nearer to the end than the beginningThere are certain constants in our lives: north stars by which we can measure and trace the changes that occur around them as time passes us by. For the better part of the last decade, the steady fulcrum around which the NBA has revolved has been the special ongoing rivalry between future first-ballot Hall of Famers LeBron James and Stephen Curry.Some basketball fans grew up at a time when they watched Magic Johnson and Larry Bird duke it out year after year, and other fandoms were formed during the...