Advertisement - scroll for more content
LeBron James said he’s “happy to have helped” Mirra Andreeva win the Indian Wells title on Sunday after the teenage tennis sensation says she drew inspiration from one of his old interviews. The 17-year-old Andreeva beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Sunday’s final to become the youngest woman since Martina Hingis in 1997 to win back-to-back WTA 1000 (previously Tier I) titles after also picking up the trophy at the Dubai Championships two weeks ago.
Speaking to the tennis channel on Monday, Andreeva said: “I was listening to an interview with LeBron James and he was saying that even if you don’t play your 100% or even if you don’t feel you’re 100% physically, I’m going to choose to be 100% mentally. He said that’s what makes us champions, so I kind of tried to do the same. It didn’t really work in the beginning, but in the end, I managed to overcome that to really go for my shots and act like one of the legends.”
Natalie Gilbert returned to the Blazers' home arena nearly 22 years after her first performance on April 25, 2003, when the Blazers hosted the Dallas Mavericks in Game 3 of the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. Then 13 years old, Gilbert stumbled on her words and mixed up "twilight's last gleaming" with "stars last gleaming." Up stepped Portland's then-head coach Maurice Cheeks, who stood side-by-side with Gilbert to encourage her, saying, "C'mon," before singing "stars last gleaming" with Gilbert. The former Philadelphia 76ers guard continued to sing alongside her, and the crowd joined in as well. Cheeks and the teenager belted "home of the brave" together, and Cheeks gave her a hug to close out the heartwarming performance. They later appeared on "The Tonight Show" and CNN.
It’s rare that a sports parody account on social media has much resonance with professional athletes. But “NBA Centel” became so popular that even NBA teams and superstars were aware of it. On Wednesday, the popular parody account – famous for its humorous, fake viral posts on X, formerly known as Twitter – appeared to go offline, with users trying to view the account met with an error message saying: “TheNBACentel hasn’t posted, when they do, their posts will show up here.”
The series debuts with the first episode Saturday (9 p.m. ET, CNN), one day before the five-year anniversary of his death in a helicopter crash Jan. 26, 2020, in Calabasas, California. Eight other people, including Bryant’s daughter Gianna, died in the accident. Each episode (the other two air Feb. 1 and Feb. 8 at 9 p.m. ET on CNN) is about 45 minutes, and the documentary tells Bryant’s story from a wide cast – friends, teammates, teachers, classmates, former players, current players, prosecutors, journalists and video clips from Bryant and his parents, Joe and Pam.
Advertisement
Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard will miss the rest of the preseason due to inflammation in his right knee, head coach Ty Lue said on Monday. Leonard, a two-time NBA champion, is yet to play for the Clippers this preseason and will sit out the team’s final warmup game against the Sacramento Kings on Thursday. Lue said Leonard would “continue to keep rehabbing” his knee this week, according to Reuters. “Keep getting better. Keep checking the boxes,” he added ahead of the team’s 110-96 victory over the Dallas Mavericks.
"It's mind-boggling to me that everyone all of a sudden is a CNN reporter," Beverley continued. "'Did you know, did you know, did you know?'- that's all I hear. I talked to an American who played there, he's not currently on the team, 'It's paradise. Went to the beach every single day for six hours a day, I had no bad experience at all. I played basketball in paradise.'
“When the national anthem was sung, you know, it just gave me goosebumps, and I realized that this was bigger than basketball,” Deng told CNN Sport’s Amanda Davies. “And you know that the support is going to be there. “This is really a credit to our fans who supported us from day one. And now, we have such a huge following and huge (fanbase) that we really believe that it’s so inspiring because of the fans. The energy and everything that they’re bringing is inspiring everybody else to pay attention to it.”
Advertisement
“We didn’t just randomly put a team together. I’ve known a lot of these players since they were so young, and I’ve kept up with a lot of other players that I didn’t know, but they were on my radar,” he told CNN. “And before I took over the president of the federation, I did imagine, ‘What if those guys committed to play for our nation?’ And this is the result because it’s all come together.
“We play to win, we’re not just happy to be here,” said Deng. “We feel like we do belong here, and we’re representing the continent, and we want to represent it the right way. When people watch us play, they understand that, you know, we’re well coached and we have great players.”
Former NBA superstar Charles Barkley took some swipes at the "boneheads" he worked with at CNN following his brief hosting stint for the network. Barkley, a longtime NBA analyst for CNN's sister network TNT, was recruited last year alongside CBS News' Gayle King to co-host an experimental weekly primetime show "King Charles," which ended last month. On Thursday's installment of "The Mike Missanelli Podcast," Barkley pushed back at the media's assertions that his show was "canceled" despite the fact that CNN had always billed "King Charles" as a limited series since its launch last November. "You know the type of boneheads I work with?" Barkley began. "First of all, it wasn’t canceled. I talk to Gayle all the time. They haven’t told us we were canceled. That’s how stupid these people are… I was always only gonna do that for a short period of time and then I was gonna go back to the NBA. So, me and Gayle, like– this is how boneheaded these people are, I work with."
Ashley Moyer-Gleich will become only the second woman to referee an NBA playoff game after being selected as one of 36 first-round officials, the league announced on Thursday. It has been over a decade since a woman last officiated a playoff game. Violet Palmer became the first woman to be selected for a postseason assignment, featuring in nine games between 2006 and 2012.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement