1 min: Arsenal launch the ball forward down the right flank, win a throw-in and then concede a free-kick. From near the corner flag, Emi Martinez wellies the ball upfield as hard as he can.
1 min: Arsenal get the ball rolling in what could be a thrilling game, their players wearing white shirts, with burgundy shorts and socks. Villa are in their usual home colours.
Tourists collapse under lights for more Gabba pain
England wilted in the Brisbane heat, their top order collapsing under the lights to leave hopes of securing the Ashes in tatters on day three of the second Test at the Gabba.
England slipped from 90 for one to 134 for six as Australia’s attack snared the wickets of Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook and Jamie Smith.
Former NBA player Chandler Parsons is now co-host of the podcast "Run It Back." (David Calvert / Getty Images for American Century Investments)
Three words perfectly summed up what LeBron James has been trying to tell us most of his life.
His pass to Rui Hachimura in the closing seconds of Thursday’s game led to the game-winning basket. With that pass, James sacrificed a chance to score at least 10 points in an NBA-record 1,298 consecutive games. When the game is on the line, the sports industry wants stars like him to take the last shot because that’s how the industry traditionally defines greatness.
People say: “Jordan would’ve shot it. Kobe would’ve shot it.” And ever since Sports Illustrated put James on the cover in 2002 — next to the words “chosen one” — he has been trying to tell us he defines greatness differently.
He reiterated that after the game against Toronto, when asked what feelings he had toward his scoring streak ending.
“None. We won.”
The sports industry, the machine, will discuss whether to feel the same way.
But we can’t pretend he hasn’t been telling us the same thing for more than 20 years: All he cares about is making the right play for the team. He’s been saying that since the S.I. cover. And that has been particularly true since creating his own media company, Uninterrupted, back in 2014.
He and Yankees great Derek Jeter, who started the Players Tribune that same year, are pioneers when it comes to modern athletes telling their own stories. And in the decade since, it’s been captivating watching athletes move beyond the gatekeeping of traditional media and the limitations of social media to create podcasts and produce documentaries (or at least try) — all to tell their own stories.
That’s not to say every time a group of former or active players steps in front of a mic, brilliance is heard. In fact, a lot of what we hear is just retelling stories we’ve heard a thousand times, only with less structure. Oftentimes there are ego-driven attempts to rewrite history under the guise of “setting the record straight.” As if we don’t have Google and can’t see the record for ourselves. But it is in their own words, which adds something to the discussion. And because there’s more of it, I’m finding some of the best stuff out there isn’t from the gods of the game like James, but the near-mortals.
Take “Run It Back” on FanDuel TV. The sports media machine is driven by stars, but the league is mostly made of voices like the ones on that show. The players who didn’t lead teams to heights and whose faces never made it to the cover of a magazine. And until recently, most of the insight from most of the players was just lost because we didn’t hear their voices. But now — particularly this season, with networks investing heavily in athlete-driven NBA content — more sources are bringing more texture. People like “Run It Back” co-host Chandler Parsons.
“I like the inside info, and I like the takes from the other guys,” Parsons said about hearing from the non-superstars. “I like hearing from Draymond Green and hearing what he has to say through his eyes and not through a third party…. As an athlete who has been in my shoes and played the game at the highest level, I respect their takes and I respect their opinion.”
In the early days of Monday Night Football, Howard Cosell, the original sports media provocateur, often griped about former NFL players leaving the field and walking into the booth. He would say sports media was the only profession where someone with no experience could be handed a big check to do the job at the highest level. That was back in the 1970s, when TV networks were few and media-savvy athletes like the great Muhammad Ali were even fewer.
Parsons graduated from the University of Florida with a journalism degree, so perhaps he avoids the scorn of Cosell’s ghost. Still, without the explosion of streaming networks and podcasting, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t have heard much from him and others like him, just because they weren’t household names. It was his appearance on another athlete-driven podcast, “All the Smoke,” that elevated him as a viable NBA analyst.
“I had no idea I wanted to do this,” Parsons said.
Same for Matt Barnes, who along with Stephen Jackson, started their podcast “All the Smoke” after careers in the NBA and stints with traditional media. To understand how popular it is today: Since joining YouTube in 2019, the show has amassed more than half a billion views, has landed interviews with Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Michelle Obama and Gov. Gavin Newsom and has grown into a full-fledged production company.
Barnes, who is the CEO of All the Smoke Productions, told me that because of the increase in NBA content in the so-called manosphere, there can be pressure to give takes for clicks. (I told him that sounded familiar.)
“There are some athletes in this space who say some of the craziest s—,” Barnes said. “I feel like if I put the work in and have deep, meaningful conversations, I’ll go viral for something that’s an interesting story.”
Case in point: “Smoke” was among the first media outlets to have NBA legend Dwyane Wade on to talk about his transgender daughter. It was a powerful episode that a decade ago would never have been initiated by former athletes. That’s not just a reflection of the times changing. It embodies how players now see themselves, and speak for themselves, in these changing times.
Players and former players are the new voice of the NBA. They’ve always been there. They just needed to be heard.
In 2020 Steve Thompson revealed he could not remember winning the Rugby World Cup and since then his case and others have been caught up in a warren of legal argument
The Royal Courts of Justice are a warren. They were built piecemeal over 125 years of intermittent construction, wings were added, blocks were expanded and then joined by a web of twisting staircases and long corridors. You navigate your way to whichever corner of it you have business in by checking the tiny print on the long daily case lists that are posted in the lobby early each morning, when the building always seems to be full of people hurrying in the other direction. For the last three years, three separate sets of legal action about brain damage in sport have been slowly making their way through here, lost in the hallways.
One is in football, one is in rugby union, one is in rugby league. The same small firm, Rylands Garth, is behind all three. Sometimes these hearings take place in the modern rooms of the east block, where the carpet is peeling and the roofs are gap-toothed with missing panels, and sometimes they take place in the cold old stone rooms off the great hall, which are wood-cladded, and contain rows and rows of heavy leather-bound books. Progress is slow. Events often go unreported.
The match between Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios opens up a direct channel between the BBC of old and a world of toxic internet hatred
It’s always best to take a sceptical view of the constant flow of BBC-bashing newspaper stories, which are often simply bogus outrage expressed for commercial gain. Even the war-on-woke, cod-ideological stuff – Clive Myrie INSISTS hamsters can breastfeed human robots – the bits that make you want to smear your face with greengage jam and weep for England, our England, with its meadows, its shadows, its curates made entirely from beef. Even these come from a hard, transactional place.
Basically, it’s the licence fee. The BBC is free at the point of delivery, but paid for by a national levy. The BBC is also a direct commercial competitor to every other form of legacy media, all of which are trying to find ways to survive and recoup revenue.
The Dallas Stars (18-5-5) came alive in the third period, scoring three goals to pull away for a 4-1 win over the Sharks (13-12-3) on Friday night at American Airlines Center. Goals from Jason Robertson, Sam Steel, Mikko Rantanen, and Miro Heiskanen propelled Dallas, while Jake Oettinger stopped 16 shots to secure the victory.
Collin Graf scored the lone goal for the Sharks. Yaroslav Askarov made 20 saves on the night.
What Happened
The Stars struck first at 14:20 of the opening period as Jason Robertson netted his 18th goal of the season. Wyatt Johnston unleashed a blistering one-timer from the left circle, and the rebound found Robertson at the edge of the crease, where he finished with precision.
But the final 20 minutes belonged to Dallas. Sam Steel was a constant presence around the net, creating multiple scoring chances, including two while killing penalties. His relentless effort finally paid off at 10:56 when he notched his fourth goal of the season to put Dallas ahead 2-1. Steel initially fired a backhand at goaltender Askarov, corralled his own rebound, and shoveled it through the five-hole to secure the lead.
Rantanen extended the Stars’ lead at 16:39, registering his 13th goal of the season. Coming out from behind the net, Rantanen unleashed a precise wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle, earning his third point of the night.
Miro Heiskanen capped the scoring with an empty-net goal at 17:41, sealing Dallas’ 4-1 triumph.
The Stars outshot San Jose 24-17, and went 1 for 2 on the power play. The Sharks, meanwhile, failed to convert all four of their opportunities on the man advantage.
What’s Next
The Sharks are back in action Saturday against the Carolina Hurricanes (16-8-2) at Lenovo Center. Puck drop takes place at 2 p.m. PT.
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Kevin Durant made his NBA debut in 2007 [Getty Images]
Kevin Durant became just the eighth player in NBA history to reach 31,000 career points during the Houston Rockets' 117-98 win against the Phoenix Suns.
The 37-year-old started the game needing just four points to hit the milestone and took his tally to 31,000 points with a 10-foot jump shot midway through the first quarter.
Durant, who finished the night with 28 points to move to 31,024 overall, sits behind Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James on the all-time list.
"As you're coming up into the league, you look at these guys as heroes and you put them on pedestals, and you look at their accomplishments as sometimes unreachable," Durant said.
"But then you get on that road trying to do your thing. That's what I've done since 2008.
"I've been focused on trying to be the best player I can be, and they set a standard for each player when they left the league.
"Guys like Wilt, Michael, Kobe - I'm missing so many guys - they just set a standard that I try to reach every day."
Antetokounmpo out for up to a month
The Milwaukee Bucks expect to be without star player Giannis Antetokounmpo for the next month as he recovers from a calf strain.
The Greek power forward limped out of Wednesday's game against the Detroit Pistons after falling to the ground during a defensive play.
Initial scans indicated the 31-year-old could miss between two to four weeks.
But the Bucks say they will give Antetokounmpo added time to recover given the nature of the injury.
"I feel like we should learn that with calves - make sure they're healthy," Bucks coach Don Rivers said.
"So that may take longer than we want. That even may make Giannis frustrated over it, but we've just got to try to get that right."
Elsewhere, James and Luka Doncic were absent as the Los Angeles Lakers lost 126-105 to the Boston Celtics.
James, 40, continues to be troubled by a sciatica problem in his left foot, which saw him miss the first 14 games of the season.
Doncic, who missed the match for personal reasons, could return for the three-game trip against the Philadelphia 76ers this weekend.
Matt Campbell has been hired as Penn State’s football coach. The announcement Friday night marks the end of a long search by the Nittany Lions to find James Franklin’s successor.
World No 2 hits double bogey after playing under peel
McIlroy five-under after third round at Royal Melbourne
The luck of the Irish has deserted golfing superstar Rory McIlroy, with Royal Melbourne tossing up a banana peel in the latest obstacle to his second Australian Open title.
The world No 2 was hoping to maintain the momentum of three birdies late in his second round when he arrived on course for an early tee time on Saturday, seven shots off the pace.
