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Red Klotz, who owned, coached and played for a number of teams that toured with and lost to the Harlem Globetrotters — most famously the Washington Generals — died Saturday in his sleep in Margate, N.J., the Press of Atlantic City reported. He was 93. Klotz was a prep basketball standout in Philadelphia, twice being named that city’s high school player of the year before going on to play at Villanova. He was on the Baltimore Bullets’ 1947-48 NBA championship team. At 5 feet 7, he is tied with six others as the third-shortest NBA player ever, and was the...

LeBron James is removing his talents from Miami. Four years after stunning the NBA world with “The Decision,” the Miami Heat forward announced an even larger revelation on SI.com Friday, perhaps destined to be called “The Redemption.” James, 29, will return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, close to his hometown of Akron and far from the sunny beaches where he led the Heat to four NBA Finals appearances, two ending in championships. "I’m not promising a championship," James says in the first-person essay. "I know how hard that is to deliver. We’re not ready right now. No way. Of course, I...

Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me. I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.

Brazil is known for many things. Soccer, of course, and its team is keeping its end up, having advanced to the final 8 in the World Cup. Another famed thing is its casual dress code. Visitors to beaches often find that virtually every woman is wearing a bikini, for example. “Body type seemingly had no influence on a woman’s choice of swimwear -- indeed, there were plenty of bikini-clad woman of all ages happily and unselfconsciously sporting bellies, flab, and cellulite,” traveler Michael Sommers wrote a few years ago. “Unlike North Americans, in general, Brazilians tend to be much more...

LeBron James will exercise the early termination option in his contract with the Miami Heat, becoming an unrestricted free agent, his agent told ESPN's Chris Broussard. It doesn't necessarily mean that he's leaving Miami. By opting out, he can sign a new five-year maximum contract with the Heat. If he left Miami, he could only get a four-year deal with a slightly lower annual salary. The difference between staying and leaving is $33 million.

Who would have thought Israel would dream the impossible dream, fight and beat the undefeatable foe not only in the fields of science, startup companies, art, or culture, but in those of sport? Its barely imaginable world victory was registered on May 18, 2014 when the Israeli basketball team, Maccabi Electra TV, won the Euroleague Basketball Championship. Maccabi beat Real Madrid 98-86 in Milan in overtime in the finals after defeating CSKA of Moscow and Emporio Armani Milan in earlier rounds. With its victory, Maccabi may have reached the moon, but its joy was not unalloyed. Maccabi supporters sang the...

The San Antonio Spurs clinched their fifth NBA title in franchise history Sunday night, and the championships have all come since the team drafted Tim Duncan with the first overall pick in the 1997 NBA draft. The five titles are the fourth most in NBA behind only the Boston Celtics (17), Los Angeles Lakers (16) and Chicago Bulls (6). Third-year forward Kawhi Leonard won the NBA Finals MVP. The Spurs have the highest winning percentage in major pro sports since 1997 and the team has not won fewer than 60% of its game in any season since drafting Duncan. The...

A person with knowledge of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling's legal strategy says his team of lawyers has hired four private investigation firms to dig up dirt on the NBA's former and current commissioners and its 29 owners. The individual, who wasn't authorized to talk publicly, says investigators were given a six-figure budget over the next 30 days to examine the league's finances, allegations of previous discriminatory conduct and compensation to past commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver. They're also looking into whether other owners ever made any off-color jokes, or racist or sexist remarks....

Native Americans are sending a loud message to the Washington Redskins. A northern California tribe paid for a commercial to air in seven major U.S. cities during halftime of Tuesday's NBA Finals game, their latest plea for the NFL team to change its “racist” name and mascot.

With the rumored move of Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball coach David Blatt to the NBA, a whole new arena of activity can open up for outgoing President Shimon Peres. One can only imagine the press conference: “Maccabi Tel Aviv announces the signing of our new coach, the illustrious Shimon Peres. Mr Peres, please, explain your views on the world of sports". Coach Peres: "It is with great honor and happiness that I accept this new assignment. After all, to be welcomed by the Euroleague champion, perpetual winner of the Israel League Cup - and here am I, the perennial loser….....

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has pulled his support from a deal to sell the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and will pursue his $1 billion federal lawsuit against the NBA, his attorney said Monday. "We have been instructed to prosecute the lawsuit," said attorney Maxwell Blecher. He said co-owner Donald Sterling would not be signing off on the deal to sell.

L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling seems to be sitting pretty. Sure, he endured bad press and probably would not have sold the team were it not for the NBA action. He may not even get to do his own negotiating, since the NBA stepped in. But a $2 billion sale to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer isn’t half bad. Still, taxes could eat a big piece of his outsize profit. With these high numbers and Sterling’s advanced age, income and estate taxes look bleak, but are they? First, let’s take income tax. Mr. Sterling only paid $12.5 million for the Clippers in...

The woman at the center of the Donald Sterling racism scandal, the ex-Los Angeles Clippers owner’s gal pal V Stiviano, was badly beaten up by two white men in New York City on Sunday night, her lawyer has confirmed exclusively to RadarOnline. Around 7pm, as Stiviano was leaving the Gansevoort Hotel in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, “two white men descended on her,” attorney Mac Nehorary said. “They were about 5’7 and they knew exactly who she was. They began to hit her and called her the N word. “Other disgusting slurs were made against her. She was able to run away...

I guess the PC sports press was hoping for a high-tech lyching of sorts, wherein Donald Sterling, the owner in limbo who is soon to be former owner of the National Basketall Association's Los Angeles Clippers, would be frog-marched out of his office and dumped onto Skid Row, never to be heard from again, for his undeniably racist remarks to his now ex-girlfriend about how he didn't want her bringing blacks to Clippers games while directing racial invective at other specific persons. It's not working out that way. In fact, quite the opposite. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is reportedly...

Donald Sterling is preparing to sue the NBA for $1 billion, according to a report from NBC News. The report comes a day after it was announced the Sterlings, actually via Shelly Sterling, had reached an agreement to sell the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

The U.S. stock market is trading at all-time highs, the yields on U.S. government bonds are at eye-popping lows and the nation’s professional basketball teams are selling for more than most observers previously thought possible. That the U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter of the year is the disturbing backdrop for this stunning surge in asset prices—call it the basketball bubble. Forbes first reported early on Thursday that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had submitted a $1.8 billion bid for the Los Angeles Clippers and that the team could go for $2 billion before all was said and done....

On Friday, Rush Limbaugh opened his radio show by diving into recent comments Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made about how own struggles with “bigotry” and “prejudice.” Limbaugh did not seem to have any particular problems with what Cuban said, but was rather offended by his subsequent apology to Trayvon Martin’s family for using a “black kid in a hoodie” as one example of who he would avoid on a dark street. “I know I’m prejudiced and I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways,” Cuban said at Nashville, Tennessee’s GrowCo Conference. “If I see a black kid...

When and how the Los Angeles Clippers officially are put up for sale — and by whom — are yet to be determined, but two more former NBA headliners reportedly are lining up separate ownership groups to bid on the franchise. ESPN’s Marc Stein reports Grant Hill and Yao Ming are actively preparing to make a run at becoming NBA owners. Hill and Ming join a list of former players and celebrities linked to having interest in owning the Clippers, including former Lakers star and Dodgers owner Magic Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Oracle CEO Larry...

Even though Warren Flagg, the retired FBI agent who's at the center of this brewing piece of news, was pretty definitive with his words, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban isn't having any of it: To set the record straight. I have never hired or consulted with any former FBI agents to investigate our 2006 Finals.

Twitter users in Spain posted 17,500 messages of anti-Semitic abuse after Israeli basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv beat Real Madrid on Sunday to win the Euroleague Championship, Jewish associations said Tuesday.