On Friday, we publicly denounced the NBA Dunk Competition; saying it will never be as good as it once was. But maybe we spoke too soon…
Mac McClung, this year’s champion, set the internet ablaze this weekend as he had 3 “perfect 50” dunks, two of which have never been done before in the contest’s history (including a 540).
McClung’s story is a pretty awesome one. A high school & college standout, he went undrafted in 2021. He had a few stints on NBA teams, but primarily spent his playing time in the G League. In the past 7 days, he signed a contract with the 76ers, an endorsement with PUMA, and won the Slam Dunk Contest.
Watch all of Mac’s dunks from Saturday here.
Here’s today’s rundown:
Headlines from the weekend: A Wild Daytona 500
NBA Mid-Season Pulse Check
Stats & Numbers: The WWE’s Price Tag
Best Bets, Weekend roundup & more
Est. Read Time: 7 Minutes
Headlines
Trending
Ricky Stenhouse Wins Longest Daytona 500 in History: The 65th running of “The Great American Race” went a record 212 laps and 530 miles, which resulted in Stenhouse winning in double overtime.
Jon Rahm Returns to World No. 1 Ranking After Genesis Win: Jon Rahm mounted a stunning come-from-behind win on Sunday to put him at the top of golf’s rankings once again as the PGA season heats up.
Kevin Love Signs with Miami Heat, Has Jersey Retired by Cavaliers: After 9 years in Cleveland, Love is the 2nd Cavalier to notably take his talents to South Beach. Cleveland plans to honor love by retiring the jersey number 0.
Padres’ Manny Machado Plans to Become Free Agent After Season: The NL’s runner-up for MVP in 2022 said he plans to test free agency after this season after it was reported that San Diego “lowballed” him.
Conversation Starters
LeBron Says Final Games of 2023 Are “Of the Most Important” of Career: The Lakers are currently 3 slots back of the play-in tournament, and LeBron says he plans to play in all of their remaining games to make sure they make the playoffs.
Barcelona In Suspicion of Bribing Referees After $1.5 million Wire Discovered: The La Liga club may be in serious trouble after payments to referee organizations between 1994 and 2018.
DK Metcalf Drug Tested for Celebrity All-Star Game Performance: The Seahawks wide receiver’s viral dunk from NBA All-Star weekend drew attention from everyone, including the NFL, who apparently wants to make sure he’s not taking PEDs for an exhibition celebrity game?
NBA
Mid-Season Pulse check
With only about 6 weeks and 25 games left in the NBA season, we figured it’d be a great time to do a pulse check, especially while the league is on a break until this Thursday.
Here’s your mid-season check-in:
Favorite to win NBA Championship: Celtics (+280)
Odds to win East: Celtics (+115) | Bucks (+185) | 76ers (+650)
Odds to win West: Suns (+250) | Nuggets (+290) | Clippers (+490)
Odds to win MVP: Nikola Jokic (-240) | Joel Embiid (+600) | Giannis Antetokounmpo (+700)
Standings & Current Playoff Picture
The top 6 teams in each conference at the end of the season are guaranteed a playoff spot, while teams #7-10 enter the play-in tournament to decide which 2 teams will advance
EAST
Boston Celtics (42-17)
Milwaukee Bucks (41-17)
Philadelphia 76ers (38-19)
Cleveland Cavaliers (38-23)
Brooklyn Nets (34-24)
—
New York Knicks (33-27)
Miami Heat (32-27)
Atlanta Hawks (32-27)
Washington Wizards (28-30)
WEST
Denver Nuggets (41-18)
Memphis Grizzlies (35-22)
Sacramento Kings (32-25)
Los Angeles Clippers (33-28)
Phoenix Suns (32-28)
Dallas Mavericks (31-29)
—
New Orleans Pelicans (30-29)
Minnesota Timberwolves (31-30)
Golden State Warriors (29-29)
Oklahoma City Thunder (28-29)
Who’s Rising & Who’s Falling
📈 The Phoenix Suns after acquiring Kevin Durant from the Nets
📈 The Boston Celtics have the best record in basketball even with a rookie head coach
📈 The Dallas Mavericks have a new dynamic duo between Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving after acquiring the latter from Brooklyn
📉 The Golden State Warriors, the NBA’s defending champs, are struggling to keep a playoff spot and keep Steph Curry healthy
📉 The New Orleans Pelicans, an early force in the West, are slipping after losing Zion Williamson to another long-term injury
📉 The Los Angeles Lakers are currently 3rd worst team in the West, despite a historic season from LeBron
NBA’s Top Plays of 2022-2023 So Far
The XFL
Not to be forgotten just yet
If you’ve found yourself a bit lost now that college football and the NFL are both over, there’s another way for you to get your fix in. This past weekend, the sports world welcomed back the XFL, an alternative football league that has had many stints in history, and now we’re just hoping that the third time is the charm.
How we got here: After filing for bankruptcy in 2020, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, along with a group of investors, bought the XFL in August of 2020 for $15 million from Vince McMahon— the current owner and operator of WWE Wrestling.
Historically, the XFL has been more of an entertaining league of its own given the much more physical style of play and rules that you don’t quite see at the professional level anymore.
The league only supports 8 teams; split into two different divisions. You might even recognize a few names that have found themselves coaching and playing in this league.
Teams:
Arlington Renegades (South Division)
Houston Roughnecks (South Division)
Orlando Guardians (South Division)
San Antonio Brahmas (South Division)
DC Defenders (North Division)
Seattle Sea Dragons (North Division)
St. Louis Battlehawks (North Division)
Vegas Vipers (North Division)
Coaches:
Bob Stoops: former HC for the Oklahoma Sooners
Hines Ward: former Steelers & Hall of Fame WR with the Steelers; now a coach
Players:
WR Josh Gordon: former New England Patriot
QB A.J. McCarron: former Alabama QB who won back-to-back national titles
WR Martavis Bryant: former WR for the Pittsburgh Steelers
For reference, here’s the full book of rules laid out in the XFL. The goal of this enhanced set of rules is to “feature exciting gameplay innovations that deliver fans a faster pace of play and more action”.
The regular season will continue through April 23rd, with playoffs set to begin in May. If you feel like checking it out to see if it can successfully fill the void that’s left open from the spring & summer breaks of NFL & NCAAF, the games won’t be hard to find. ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 & ESPN+ all have deals to stream them.
Weekend Roundup
🏒 NHL: The Las Vegas Golden Knights currently carry the best win streak across the league, winning 5 in a row. Not too much has changed in terms of overall standings, but the Penguins, Islanders, Oilers, and Wild control the Wild Card spots right now.
⛳️ The Genesis Invitational: Jon Rahm is your 2023 Genesis Invitational Champion. He’s won five of the last nine worldwide tournaments he’s played in, and had to pull out his best stuff to beat Max Homa this weekend. Rahm finished his last round to bring his score to -17 under par.
🏀 NCAAB: This weekend was not in favor of the underdogs. Among the 20 matchups where a top-25 team played an unranked team, just one unranked team came out victorious - that was Kentucky beating #10 Tennessee (66-54)
⚽️ EPL: Just a few surprising results over the weekend, most of which came on Saturday. Chelsea was clean-sheeted on their home turf against Southampton (1-0) and Manchester City drew with 13th-place Nottingham Forest. It wasn’t too surprising, however, as Man City sits #2 on the EPL table and has most of their attention on the upcoming Champions League match on Wednesday.
Stats & Numbers 📊
Vince McMahon, the owner/founder/CEO of WWE is seeking $9 billion for the wrestling powerhouse. Amazon, Disney, NBC, Endeavor and Saudi Arabia’s PIF have all submitted bids.
Mac McClung’s 2 NBA games played are the fewest by any player to win a dunk contest. Next was Kobe Bryant, with 39 games.
There have been 116 days this NBA season with at least one game on, and on all 116 days, at least one player has scored 30+ points.
Furthermore, there have already been 138 40-point games this season, which is the 2nd-most in a season all-time. It trails only the 1961-1962 season which had 142.
63 of the 142 40-point games in 1961-1962 were just by Wilt Chamberlain
In Eric Bieniemy’s 5 seasons with the Chiefs as their offensive coordinator, they ranked 1st in the NFL in points per game, averaging 30.1 points over those 5 seasons.
Washington, who Bieniemy is now the OC for, has ranked the 3rd worst in the league, averaging 18.8 over the past 5 years
Diana Taurasi is the 6th player to average 15+ ppg in 16 different seasons in professional basketball history (both men’s and women’s). She joins LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dirk Nowitzki & Karl Malone.
Jayson Tatum’s 55 points in the NBA All-Star game on Sunday is the most points ever scored in the game’s history, beating Anthony Davis’ 52 points scored in 2017.
The rarity of a Quadruple-Double: There have only been 4 quadruple-doubles in NBA history, and it’s been 29 years since the last one. David Robinson of the Spurs had 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 blocks against the Pistons in 1994.
A Smarter Bet is a Better Bet
Together with Outlier
There’s no need to make life more confusing, especially when it comes to sports betting. I think we speak for everyone when we say “who doesn’t want a little data behind their bets?”.
Here’s why we love Outlier and decided to partner with them:
Make Expert Picks without being a Betting Expert! You don’t have to be a sharp to feel confident in your bets and make money. Outlier’s tools let bettors of all experience levels, shapes & sizes make smarter & more informed bets.
Make betting easier & less tiresome. Annoyed of rebuilding betslips or trying to add someone else’s bets? Outlier’s Two-Click Bet Will Change the Way You Tail.
Sports data is great, but it can be a lot. Outlier knows bettors don’t just want more data, they want to know what it means. Outlier delivers that and helps its users make decisions without wasting time. Because after all— time is money!
There’s no payment method required when you sign up and begin your 7-day free trial. Once your trial is wrapped up, you can choose if you want a monthly or yearly subscription, or cancel. Simple as that!
Don’t forget— when it comes to betting, sometimes you have to spend money to make money. You’re a couple of insights away from making your next bet that will pay for your entire year!
Click this link or the button below to get started with Outlier today!
💰 Best Bets
Record on the year: 24-22
We extended our hot streak over the weekend, hitting 3 of our 4 bets. That brings us to 9-2 since February 8th. Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter and spread the word!
February 20th & 21st
NCAAB (2/20): #22 TCU -2 (-110) vs #5 Kansas
*No Huddle is not an online sports gambling book or gambling platform of any kind. We do not advise the placing of bets or wagers on a sportsbook that is not in compliance with your current local & state laws.
Please bet responsibly. Problem? Call 1-800-Gambler.
🗓 Today in Sports History
1984: Twin brothers, Phil & Steve Mahre, incredibly & bizarrely take the Gold and Silver in the Men’s Alpine Skiing Slalom competition at the Olympic Games in 1984.