u/Pickleskennedy1

Beyond the fact that ESPN has not critically covered the Aspiration scandal at all beyond the first week (where their primary contribution was giving Clippers’ owner Steve Ballmer a softball interview and repeatedly saying he deserves the benefit of any doubt), there has been no mention of this obvious conflict of interest either.

The NBA has also, more predictably, not acknowledged it at all.
Larry Tanenbaum, the Raptors’ outgoing owner, is the current chairman of the NBA Board of Governors.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/toronto-raptors-owner-set-play-085301437.html

We’ve reached a point where corruption and bad actors are so routine that it no longer feels at all noteworthy.

Yesterday, Fourth of July champion Joey Chestnut had a pretty disappointing individual performance all things considered, eating 67 hot dogs in ten minutes, nine short of his all-time record in 2021. Similarly to LeBron, he’s in a stage of decline, and eventually someone will take his place as the face of his sport.

Nonetheless, he led wire to wire, and it was enough to beat the second place finisher Patrick Bertoletti by 15 dogs. That’s 129% of the second place’s total, almost identical to LeBron’s.

Sure, as you were about to bring up, there’s a significant asterisk - Takeru Kobayashi wasn’t present. But in Netflix’s “Unfinished Beef” event in 2024, Chestnut already out-ate Kobayashi 83-66 under slightly different regulations, fully and decisively settling the GOAT debate.

While LeBron still has a little bit of catching up to do with his career winding to a close, it’s fair to say that LeBron is well on his way to making a Chestnut-like legacy in the sport of basketball.

https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/nathans-hot-dog-eating-contest-2026-live-updates-results-start-time-highlights/live/

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/who-is-the-nba-leader-for-points-plus-assists

**pretend I used percentages correctly

https://www.topendsports.com/events/worldcupsoccer/goal-scorers.htm

https://www.espn.com/soccer/stats/_/league/FIFA.WORLD/view/scoring

To clarify, this is referring to players who were actively playing in that league.

https://boxingnewsonline.net/news/allen-names-heavyweight-to-beat-usyk/

“I have always thought that Kabayel was the man to beat Usyk and that’s not just after the Verhoeven fight, I’ve always thought that Kabayel just had the style to beat him. Kabayel can do a bit of everything. He can make himself compact and put the pressure on, and he is a very, very good body puncher.

“I have always thought that Kabayel was the man to beat him and I still do. So, hopefully [it happens], not that I want to see him get beat, but I want to see Kabayel get his opportunity.”

https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/760470/united-states-turkiye

Yes, the U.S. lost to Turkey. It happened on the last kick of the game.

This game, despite the armchair coaching, also did not matter. It’s why Poch made the active choice to start ten of eleven players that he absolutely will not start come the knockout rounds.

Aside from a knocking-the-rust-off 30-40 minute cameo from Pulisic, this was mostly somewhere around number 12-23 on the roster. One wouldn’t expect that group from the U.S. to do anything at a World Cup.

It’s very unlikely that the U.S. will make it past the quarterfinals. This is despite the home World Cup and easier draw to the quarters being major things in their favor. While a 32 team vs 16 team knockout stage makes things different, the U.S. has not won a knockout game since 2002. They haven’t won two, well., ever.

The U.S. may lose in the quarters, and they may have a disappointing end earlier. But it will not be because the last men on their roster, 90% of whom won’t start, 50% of whom won’t play at all after this point, lost a group stage match to Turkey.

They finished first place in the group, and will face a third place team in the round of 32. So far, it’s exactly what they hoped for.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/06/25/dundon-expects-taxpayers-to-foot-entire-bill-for-potential-moda-center-renovation/?issueId=WWDUQFPNCJHRRDAPNMU7RQPU2Y&utm_source=sbj&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=15255f68-ebdf-4106-8e0f-61585d28fb8b

Since taking over the franchise in 2026, Dundon has also cut costs on allowing two way players to travel to playoff games, and at the head coaching position.

He is saying that the sacrifice on his part is not relocating the team.

https://dunkingwithwolves.com/posts/timberwolves-insider-reveals-hidden-reason-minnesota-traded-kat

When the Wolves traded KAT for Randle and Divincenzo, the justification was that it would allow them to keep both Naz Reid and NAW, staying under the second apron and getting off of KAT’s huge contract.

They let NAW go anyways, and he had a strong year in Atlanta. Julius Randle was salary dumped, Divincenzo is a good role player who tore his **Achilles. Lastly, they just traded Naz Reid and a bunch of picks for a talented, but also somewhat unreliable and injury prone point guard.

Originally, they had a fairly perfect second option behind ANT to be able to compete with the top teams in the West in KAT.

The list is as follows:

Melvin Ely (12th overall pick) (5.3 points per game for his career, going to use that as an imperfect but somewhat telling baseline)

Ekpe Udoh (6th pick) (3.5 points per game)

Chris Duarte (13th pick) (7.6 points, out of league in four years)

Rafael Araujo (8th pick) (2.8 points)

Juan Dixon (17th pick) (8.4 points per game)

Tyler Hansbrough (13th pick) (6.7 points)

Al Thornton (14th pick) (11.9 points, out of league in four years)

Buddy Hield (6th pick) (14.5 points)

Adreian Payne (15th pick) (4 points)

Cam Johnson (11th pick) (12.2 points)

Fred Jones (14th pick) (7.5 points) did win a dunk contest though

Dalton Knecht (17th pick) (7.1 points, possibly on his way out of the league)

Courtney Alexander (13th pick) (9 points, out of league in three years)

Delon Wright (20th pick) (6.7 points)

Joey Graham (16th pick) (5.9 points)

Tristan Da Silva (18th pick) (8.6 points so far)

Hakim Warick (19th pick) (9.4 points)

Brandon Rush (13th pick) (6.8 points)

https://www.letsgowarriors.com/p/strongest-arguments-ive-heard-against?

(Source)

So between the 18 of them, no all-star appearances or serious consideration. Two of the eighteen have both averaged double digit points for their career (let that be worth as much as you want) and made it past their rookie contracts.

That can happen with a sample size of 18 (although it’s not great, with 11 of them picked in the lottery), but what stands out is that for at least nine of those 11 picked in the lottery, hindsight would say they were drafted higher than their eventual production would justify. A lot of physical development tends to happen between 19-24.