Right up there at the top. | | | | | The Big Fundamental. (Nathaniel S. Butler) | | | | | | “Right up there at the top.”
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| | rantnrave:// There aren't a lot of athletes everybody loves. No matter how distinguished a career they may have led. Just ask a RED SOX fan about DEREK JETER, or a FLAMES fan about WAYNE GRETZKY, or a DODGERS fan about WILLIE MAYS. But if we can all agree on anything, it’s that TIM DUNCAN is totally cool. (I know what you’re thinking – didn’t referee JOEY CRAWFORD hate TIM DUNCAN? No actually, and stats don’t lie.) Celebrated trash-talker DRAYMOND GREEN couldn't figure out how to get under DUNCAN’s skin. (Not that GREEN didn't have his own problems to worry about MONDAY.) As the BIG FUNDAMENTAL drew the curtain MONDAY on his impeccable NBA career, it was as classy and understated as his entire career. Here’s hoping he’s not overshadowed by the more self-centered KOBE BRYANT at their upcoming SPRINGFIELD inductions... There aren't a lot of athletes everybody hates. PETE ROSE will never have to pay for a drink in CINCINNATI (not that he’d try), LAWRENCE TAYLOR can still count on a standing ovation when he goes to a NEW YORK GIANTS GAME, and MICHAEL VICK is probably going to get another job in the NFL. But CRISTIANO RONALDO is about as unpopular as it gets when it comes to FIFA. His club supporters at REAL MADRID fans get fed up with their goal-scoring wonder from time to time. Hell, even insects hate RONALDO. Okay, so maybe there’s a lot of the “he’s too rich/handsome/successful/lucky-with-supermodels” jealousy that TOM BRADY also knows so well, but RONALDO somehow really pushes those buttons, with his pouting and sulking and diving and diving. When RONALDO left the Euro Championship game SUNDAY in the 25th minute after a tough knee injury, PORTUGAL instantly gained a lot of fans and even the local moths took advantage of the opportunity to taunt him. Sure enough, BILL SIMMONS’ notorious “EWING Theory” went into effect, and the QUINAS rallied around their less respected talent to pull out a 1-0 stunner against FRANCE. Everybody wins, except maybe RONALDO... That said, RONALDO’s probably still not as bad as A-ROD. | | | - Team REDEF |
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| The post-Jordan NBA era unofficially ended Monday, when San Antonio Spurs legend Tim Duncan announced his retirement after 19 seasons as a pro. Duncan was at the forefront of the league for the past two decades, winning five championships and a pair of MVPs as the best player of the generation that entered the league as MJ was on his way out. | | |
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| An in-depth animated match report of the Euro 2016 final between Portugal and France. | | |
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| In a coffeehouse with the world's tallest building preening from two miles out the front window, here sits another groundbreaker: a 26-year-old, female, Emirati, Arab, Muslim, competitive weightlifter with a vitality in her tone, a hijab on her head and a herniated disk hollering from her lower back. | | |
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| The Rio Olympics has 27 publicly out LGBTI athletes set to compete, the most ever for an Olympics. The British delegation currently holds the crown as the "gayest" in Rio. | | |
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| US fans used the internet to help cement their fandom - and now Major League Soccer is doing much the same to attract new supporters. | | |
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| Over the course of nearly two decades in the NBA, Tim Duncan faced many challenges. Sometimes he lost, usually he won, and the fight was always interesting. Duncan announced his retirement on Monday, and to commemorate the occasion we look back on some of his greatest duels. | | |
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| There are two forms of team sports negotiating currently underway that have completely distinctive rules and dynamics. The NBA and the NFL have negotiations for their rookie class and free agency negotiations going concurrently and an effective agent must master both processes. | | |
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| From 1992 to 1997, MaliVai Washington was a reliable top-40 player on the ATP Tour who was nonetheless overshadowed by other U.S. players such as Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, and Jim Courier. Still, for two weeks in 1996, Washington was the talk of the tennis world. | | |
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| Every year, MLB's All-Star game brings together the best players from each league to form two superteams. For one game, we get to see Jose Fernandez as a reliever against lineups in which Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera hit back to back. | | |
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| "I just hope to make a difference." This was the goal Tim Duncan set for his NBA career on draft night in the summer of 1997, minutes after the Spurs selected him first overall. Duncan would have been the first pick in each of the previous two drafts. | | |
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| The $4-billion sale of the UFC to Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG was made official Monday. "We've been fortunate over the years to represent UFC and a number of its remarkable athletes," WME-IMG co-CEOs Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell said in a prepared statement. | | |
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| Appearing in ad campaigns and collaborating with luxury designers, sports professionals represent the new school of style influencers — and they’re giving brands exposure to an entirely fresh consumer base as well | | |
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| Pelé; Ronaldo; Sócrates; Garrincha: Brazil has had its fair share of legends, players so great a nickname in Portuguese is enough to identify them the world over. But there's another who sits as equal amongst these greats, whose name is often forgotten. Marta -- a Rainha -- isthe undisputed heir to Pelé's throne. | | |
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| To celebrate the 50th anniversary of England's World Cup victory, we're serialising the wonderfully comprehensive new book 1966 and Not All That throughout July. Published by Repeater Books, 1966 and Not All That includes contributions from award-winning writers David Goldblatt, Simon Kuper, Philippe Auclair and Amy Lawrence, among others. | | |
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| Under Armor’s 90-second long “Rule Yourself” spot starring the Team USA Women’s Gymnastics is athletic ad perfection. It’s on the verge of 3 million views and deserves every single one of them. It makes pudgy, middle-age men want to do some gymnastics. | | |
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| A goal in any sport is a hard thing to manage-or better be. Goals that are easy are hardly goals at all. Like walk-a-thons, they are merely directed action. But soccer is perhaps the game wherein goals are hardest to come by. | | |
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| Anthony Marks is a success story -- a walk-on who earned a scholarship at a leading D-1 baseball program he helped lead to a championship. The downside? Oh, around $150,000 in college debt.... | | |
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| Where more than 8,000 men were killed, a new generation is trying to overcome the past on the local football pitch. | | |
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| The last time a Latina gymnast represented Team USA at the Olympics, Laurie Hernández - whose grandparents are Puerto Rican -- hadn't even familiarized herself with the 39-by-39-foot floor that's now set her apart in the sport. | | |
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| Minor league baseball teams have turned the Pokémon Go craze into a marketing ploy because humanity was never gonna make it anyway | | |
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| © Copyright 2016, The REDEF Group |
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