Bears had to outbid division rival Vikings for Justin Fields Steven Kubitza

It turns out the Bears weren't the only team interested in that pick. The Minnesota Vikings were also reportedly trying to move up with the New York Giants to land that No. 11 pick. However, different reports detail different intentions in Minnesota.

Bears outbid Vikings to land Justin Fields

An article on NBC Sports Chicago shared a quote from Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio in which he said the Vikings could have taken Fields at No. 14 overall if he was still on the board.

Then there is The Athletic's Chad Graff, who said the Vikings were interested in moving up to No. 11 to draft offensive tackle Rashawn Slater. He ended up going to the Los Angeles Chargers with pick No. 13 overall.

An early run on defensive backs caused the Dallas Cowboys to swap picks with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles took receiver DeVonta Smith, which then had the Giants open to trading back. That then allowed the Bears to move up and take Fields. The Vikings ultimately ended up with offensive tackle Christian Darrisaw.

The alternate realities are endless when it comes to the NFL Draft. Plenty of other teams could have also taken Fields, which may have left the Bears to be a total disaster in 2021. If Fields does end up being a star, Vikings fans may wonder why the team wasn't more aggressive to add him.

The Bears are entering a new era while Kirk Cousins continues to be the guy in Minnesota. How this plays out will be talked about for years to come.

  

I'm not sure Billy Donovan for all the pedigree he has in basketball from his days at the University of Florida and the Oklahoma Thunder is the right coach for the Chicago Bulls. Granted he is the better than the last coach which isn't saying much and in the beginning he had the Bulls looking like an actual NBA team but they started losing games in bunches. Whether they had double digit leads and lost or they lost by double digits near the trade deadline when they made a massive trade and we have yet to see any  improvement since then. They look like they are still being run by the duo of Gar-Pax. Some would say they are struggling because Adam Levine is out because of Covid  Protocol but I'm not sure this team at full strength has won ten games since the trade. 

I know Chicago fans were excited to have Donovan because of his ties to Joakim Noah who is still beloved in Chicago. And every new coach has to work with the roster he is given until he can turn the roster over but with the trade this team should be in the conversation for the play - in round which I think is completely unnecessary. I don't know if it's his coaching style but this team plays like a team that has quit on their coach. They gave up some good young players and got back a more veteran group and for some reason gave up a couple of first round draft picks to complete the trade. The best of the transaction has been Nikola Vuevic who has pretty much scored in double digits in every game he's played for the Bulls. Beyond that they've played from behind in every game down by double digits by half time. Once again that sounds like a team that has given up on their coach.

 LeBron James Reveals Why He Deleted His Police Tweet Andrew Holleran 

LeBron James tweeted – and later deleted – a blunt message about a Columbus, Ohio police officer on Wednesday afternoon.

The Los Angeles Lakers star tweeted out a photo of the Columbus police officer who shot and killed a young Black girl on Tuesday. Body cam footage from the incident shows the teenage girl getting shot multiple times as she threatened another Black woman with a knife.

“YOU’RE NEXT,” LeBron tweeted along with a photo of the Columbus police officer. The tweet was up for a while, but was ultimately deleted.

While some applauded the message, LeBron faced heavy criticism from others for the tweet, with many pointing to the body cam footage.

On Wednesday night, LeBron addressed his decision to delete it.

“I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer.  it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY,” the four-time NBA champion tweeted on Wednesday evening.

LeBron James used the same ‘ACCOUNTABILITY’ message following the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial on Tuesday.

The Lakers star is currently out with an injury, but is making good progress in his rehab, according to coach Frank Vogel.

The post LeBron James Reveals Why He Deleted His Police Tweet appeared first on The Spun.

 

 

NBA Twitter thinks they found Kevin Durant's burner and the evidence is overwhelming Patrick Schmidt

NBA fans think they found Kevin Durant's burner account liking tweets saying he's better than Stephen Curry and the evidence is damaging.

Kevin Durant is one of the best athletes to follow on Twitter because he is extremely truthful and open to the point of possibly being too truthful and open. Few professional athletes use social media the way he uses it but that could be a detriment because of his presumed use of burner accounts.

If you're a social media novice and don't know what a burner account is, it refers to a fake or dummy account people use to hide their identity behind an alias or otherwise imposter account.

For instance, if someone is criticizing Durant for joining a superteam to win a ring with the Warriors or forming his own superteam with the Nets and he gets sensitive to the criticism, Durant will hop on his burner account and defend himself without revealing his true identity.

But this time, Durant's burner activity may have been exposed by one intrepid member of NBA Twitter who thinks he's unearthed the evidence that's clear as day.

NBA fans think they discovered Kevin Durant's burner account

When Durant is one of two accounts to like a tweet saying he was better than Stephen Curry during their run together with the Golden State Warriors, it does raise an eyebrow.

Did he forget to sign out of his burner and he got caught?

Is this just a random coincidence?

It's hard to say, but the more fun result is this is definitely KD's burner and he's definitely looking for acknowledgment that he's better than Curry, because his ego needs the boost.

 

 LeBron James Says Officer Who Shot Ma'Khia Bryant Is 'Next' After Derek Chauvin Verdict Jon Jackson 

LeBron James posted a photo of Nicholas Reardon on Twitter today with the message: "YOU'RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY." Reardon is the officer identified with firing four shots that killed 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio. The message seemingly implied the officer would be the next to face repercussions similar to that of George Floyd's killer Derek Chauvin.

The basketball star of the Los Angeles Lakers has been an outspoken supporter of Black Lives Matter and frequently takes to social media to express his opinions regarding social justice. As a player, he is a four-time world champion, including from the Lakers run in 2020, as well as a 17-time NBA all-star.

The police claim Bryant threatened two girls with a knife on Tuesday when she fatally shot by an officer, who was later identified by authorities as Reardon. The incident occurred shortly before a jury reached a guilty verdict in the murder trial of the former Minneapolis police officer Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd. Bryant's caused immediate protest in Columbus and is currently under investigation.

 

NFL owner refuses to take down George Floyd tweet saying, 'I CAN BREATHE' after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder

The Las Vegas Raiders sent a tweet that read "I CAN BREATHE" after Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd on Tuesday.

The tweet drew backlash for being tone-deaf and its similarity to a phrase echoed by NYPD supporters after a New York City police officer killed Eric Garner by putting him in a chokehold in 2014. Pro-police demonstrators wore shirts with the phrase "I can breathe" as a counter-protest to those protesting police brutality.

Raiders owner Mark Davis admitted that he was the one who sent the tweet and did not do so to incite pro-police sentiment. Davis said that the tweet was inspired by a phrase from Floyd's brother Philonese, who said, "Today, we are able to breathe again." after Chauvin's verdict.

"That's my tweet," Davis told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "I don't want anyone in the organization taking heat. I take full responsibility for that. I was driving home from a meeting when the verdict came in. Soon after, I was listening to George Floyd's brother, Philonise, speak. And he said, 'Today, we are able to breathe again.' I took my lead from him. In my mind, that was all I needed to say, 'I can breathe.'"

Still, despite many finding the tweet offensive, Davis also said that he wouldn't take the tweet down, according to Tashan Reed of The Athletic.

"I felt that was a powerful statement," Davis said. "Today was a day where I can breathe, and we can all breathe again because justice was served. But we have a lot of work to do still on social justice and police brutality."

The tweet was pinned to the top of The Raiders' official Twitter account for the entirety of Tuesday evening. It has since been unpinned, but it is still live on the account's media posts.

Several high-profile figures in sports have called out the Raiders for the tweet and leaving it up, citing a lack of sensitivity on the issue, including LeBron James and Jemele Hill.

Insider has reached out to the Raiders' communication team for comment but has not heard back at the time of publication.

 

I remember the last NCAA game I listened to in 2020 was a first round game in the ACC Tournament. I didn’t realize the NCAA had already started playing games without people in the stands. The next day I read all NCAA championships would be suspended. Sports over the next year was a drag. The nonsense with the NBA bubble. A sloppy 60 game season for MLB. NCAA Football was helter skelter with lower division schools more or less cancelling their seasons. Some talk about cancelling the Division I football season or some conferences opting out. And then changing their minds leading to the idiotic end to the Big Ten season where NCAA franchise Ohio State was allowed to jump over other schools who’d played more games, to play in the Big Ten championship and ultimately be put into the College Football Playoffs. In a year where the overriding theme was equality which never played out more on the streets and social media but not on the football field. Especially in a particularly brutal political environment where Covid deniers wanted full stadiums while the more cautious wanted to protect the treasure of youth. Different sides of our national identity came to the fore and it was ugly and violent even when the best thing for the country was to come together and fight the thing that was keeping us apart. It turns out it was more than a Pandemic.

Yet we found a way to fight through the nonsense and have a stellar NFL season culminating in another Super bowl involving Tom Brady and something no one has ever seen in football history which is a Super bowl played at a team’s home field. And it only got better. MLB started Spring Training on time and so far (knock on wood) Covid hasn’t been too much of a disruption and then there was the NCAA Tournament. No matter the circumstance this was one of the best tournaments to ever take place! While there weren’t many buzzer beaters there were a number of teams that shocked the field or just showed they weren’t to be taken for granted. Grand Canyon University, Oregon State, and of course UCLA. Gonzaga going for the first undefeated season in decades. Baylor bringing Scott Drew’s dreams to fruition with a National Title. A doosey of a final four weekend with an awesome finish to one of the best games in tournament history between Gonzaga and UCLA whom no one thought it would go to overtime or even double overtime if not for a miraculous shot at the buzzer. No one could have drawn it up or defended it better, the final shot which left me with my jaw on the floor knowing that UCLA was a play in team that got all the way to the final four. Who does that?

So what happens now? Seniors get an extra year of eligibility because of Covid. Minor changes in future professional sports including a 17 game season in the NFL? Changes in the playoff system? We’ve already seen that an entire baseball league hitting DH doesn’t work and thank goodness for not continuing with the automatic runner in extra innings. And finally full stands for all events. However, it is not as simple as it is written Monday morning quarterback style. With strict voting laws being protested to the point MLB has moved the All- Star game out of Georgia. And Donald Trump stupidly suggesting a boycott when there are hardly anyone in the stands already.

Another period where sports came to our aid in tough times but the underlying epidemic of young black men and women being shot and protests over it amounted to nothing though some would say the conviction of Dereck Chauvin would make the suffering of the past year worth it. Some would say it is only the beginning. It is a matter of forgetting, which is what sports has done for us through the years. The unpredictability of it all without educated individuals butchering the English language and unnecessary bad language in a time when there is more access to younger generations to see adults behaving badly. Never in my life would I imagine an athlete swearing at the President of the United States no matter how wrong he is.  G©