Friday Afterschool Special: Kobe's Farewell

Author:
Sam Page
Publish date:
Jan 22, 2016

With so many of you enjoying snow days today, I'm not sure this can accurately be called an afterschool special. But whether you're just getting home or hunkered down, you can still enjoy the latest in sports news and whimsy!

NBA All-Star starters announced

The starting lineups for the NBA All-Star game have been announced. Kobe Bryant, set to retire after his 20th season this year, earned the most votes (1,891,614), ahead of reigning MVP Steph Curry's 1,604,325. Bryant will appear in his 18th All-Star game and currently holds the All-Star record for games started (14), points (280), and field goals (115). Here are the starting lineups:

East: Dwyane Wade, Kyle Lowry, LeBron James, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony

West: Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard

Meanwhile, on Twitter, the mom of Golden State's Draymond Green expressed disappointment with the voting results. She has a point: Her son leads the league with eight triple doubles!

Draymond then chimed in to joke about making sure his mom didn't say anything to get him in trouble.

NFL, Star Wars-style

Austrian TV station PULS4 has a fun Star Wars-themed preview video for this weekend's NFL conference championships:

Kerr Returns

Coach Steve Kerr, who lead the Warriors to a championship in his first season as head coach last year, will return to the team today for their game against Indiana. Golden State did just fine without him, going 39–4 under assistant coach Luke Walton, but they'll surely be happy to get their bench boss back.

Federer the fan

Yesterday at the Australian Open, American Lauren Davis had quite the second set against the heavily-favored Maria Sharapova. Even though her superstar opponent would eventually win, 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-0, Davis made her work, particularly during a 27-stroke rally that ended with Davis missing an easy shot. The point was so exciting it made Roger Federer, waiting to play his own match, jump out of his chair:

We totally called it

Jim Harbaugh attempted to climb a tree in a potential recruit David Long's yard, after being dared by Long's little sister. The Michigan coach's tree climbing ways should be no surprise to anyone who read the Buzz Beamer cartoon from our August issue: