The Biggest Sports Fails of 2013 (So Far)

The fail: Dwight Howard's free agency refuses to end.
Date: 7/1-7/5/2013

Remember when everyone loved Dwight Howard? The guy who dressed up like Superman for dunk contests and was always smiling? That guy is long gone, replaced by a loathsome waffler who is seemingly never content with whatever team he is playing on. His free agency was predictably painful to watch, receiving an inordinate amount of media coverage and loaded with indecision. One day it was L.A., the next Houston, then Golden State. Even after Howard picked Houston, there was a last second "oh wait a minute" where he decided maybe he didn't want to leave L.A. after all. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for him to get sick of Houston; we'll give it seven months.

The fail: Paulie Malignaggi and Adrien Broner beef over a "side piece."
Date: 6/22/2013

June 22 was not a good night for Paulie Malignaggi. First, he lost his WBA Welterweight Championship to Adrien Broner, who had been talking a lot of trash before, during and after the fight. He also was the loser in the war of words, as Broner told ringside interviewer Jim Gray "I'm good...I left with his belt and his girl." While Malignaggi tried to save face by telling Broner "you don't get laid," there was a fatal flaw in his argument: not only does Broner get laid, but it happens to be with Malignaggi's ex-girlfriend, whom Broner was not shy about discussing in the pre-fight buildup.

The Fail: Mitch Williams makes light of Brandon McCarthy's on-field skull fracture.
Date: 7/10/2013

It seems like a really weird choice to go on TV and dog a guy who got his skull fractured by a line drive and almost died. However, that's exactly what former Phillies closer Mitch Williams did on MLB Network when narrating a video of current Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon McCarthy nearly dying on the mound last year as he took a vicious liner square to the dome.

Williams claimed that if a pitcher doesn't throw inside, then what happened to McCarthy is what one can expect to happen to them. A big Twitter user with almost 120,000 followers, McCarthy quickly had so many people coming to his defense and ragging on the analyst that "Mitch Williams" was a trending topic in the United States within two hours.

The fail: President Obama embarrasses himself with horrific public shooting display on Easter.
Date: 4/1/2013

Even the best basketball players in the world have off days. Just not many of them do it when their competition is a bunch of little kids. For all his big talk about how much he loves to play basketball, President Obama sure didn't look the part during a shoot-around with some children during the White House's annual Easter Egg Roll. While some claimed that it would be the most embarrassing moment of his entire presidency, he's fortunately managed to outdo himself in that department as well. But since our business is sports and not politics, all we'll say is he should be ashamed of himself with this horrific shooting display.

The fail: The Bruins give up two goals in 17 seconds to lose Stanley Cup.
Date: 6/24/2013

Boston knows its share of heartbreaking losses in championship games. There is something about Game 6, though, that really makes things go bad for this city. First, it was Bill Buckner in 1986. Then, there was Kendrick Perkins tearing his ACL in Game 6 of the 2010 NBA Finals. This year, the Bruins had seemingly clinched a series-saving win at home over the Blackhawks that would send the series back to Chicago for a decisive Game 7. With just 1:16 to go, though, the visitors scored an equalizer that stunned the raucous TD Garden crowd into silence. Things got really quiet 17 seconds later when Chicago scored again to take the lead, and less than five minutes after it looked like there would be a Game 7 the Blackhawks were celebrating a Stanley Cup title.

The fail: Anderson Silva gets knocked out for the first time in his career.
Date: 7/6/2013

Chris Weidman went into his fight with Anderson Silva as more than a 2:1 underdog, but it's safe to say nobody (least of all Silva) is going to take him that lightly again. With the showman Silva feigning wooziness after a left jab, Weidman floored the defending champion with a left hook straight to the face before pouncing on top of him to secure the KO. It was an absolutely stunning upset for sure, but one that had Silva just played it straight could have easily been avoided. Who's ready for the rematch?

The fail: The NHL and NHLPA stage a 113-day lockout that causes over 600 games to be canceled.
Date: 1/6/2013

Lockouts are never good for a sport, no matter what the league or union say. The two sides squabble over their millions of dollars while fans, businesses, and employees of the organizations and arenas suffer. The NHL already went through a season canceling lockout in 2004-05, and hockey had just started to gain a footing again when this year's lockout commenced. By the time it ended in January, over 600 games (including the All-Star Game and Winter Classic) had been wiped out. Only time will tell if this one does the same kind of long-term damage as the last go-around.

The fail: Lance Armstrong admits to Oprah and the world that he did indeed dope en route to seven straight Tour de France wins.
Date: 1/14/2013

Sometimes, even if you know something isn't real, you'll tell yourself it's just so you can sleep at night? That's basically what Lance Armstrong did for the last decade, adamantly denying ever taking any performance-enhancing substance. Then, with the walls closing in on him after a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report in October 2012, Armstrong finally confessed his sins to the most popular sounding board in America: Oprah. He has tried to justify it by saying it was "impossible" to win the Tour de France without cheating, and he may be right. Nevertheless, we'll always be reminded by his hypocrisy by this scene from the cinematic classic, Dodgeball.

The fail: Baseball players such as Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and Gio Gonzalez are linked to steroids-distribution lab Biogenesis.
Date: 1/29/2013

Anyone who thought the days of PEDs in baseball were over is sorely mistaken, as yet another story has popped up implicating many well-known baseball players in a steroid scandal. This particular operation was especially ridiculous, as players were mentioned explicitly by name in documents seized from the company's headquarters. While we know that nobody has ever accused baseball players of being the brightest bunch, this kind of stupidity has to be a new low.

The fail: Rutgers fires basketball coach Mike Rice after videos show him verbally and physically abusing players in practice.
Date: 4/3/2013

If you've ever played an organized team sport, chances are you've had a coach who cared just a little too much. Maybe he or she wasn't Bobby Knight throwing chairs crazy, but this person still yelled and screamed like every moment was Game 7 of the Finals. Well, imagine the Rutgers basketball players' surprise when their coach decided to start playing dodgeball in the middle of practice, huzzing basketballs at their heads and calling them "fucking fairies," among other things. Kind of puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?

The fail: Athletes across all sports continue to create problems for themselves via Twitter.
Date: Throughout 2013

Whether it's Mike Wallace expressing his views on homosexuality, Tyler Seguin making confusing remarks about his new city, or A-Rod simply ignoring doctors' (and the Yankees') advice, athletes across all sports have done a phenomenal job getting themselves into trouble on Twitter in 2013. It's amazing how watching other guys make asses of themselves on Twitter seemingly teaches athletes nothing. While teams are now schooling their rookies on the dangers of the Internet, clearly the message doesn't always get through. Fortunately, the fans are the ones who get to reap the benefits.

The fail: Josh Brent, already out on bail and awaiting trial for intoxication manslaughter, goes back to jail for testing positive for marijuana twice.
Date: 5/24/2013; 6/19/2013

This story is really sad, namely because a man who killed his teammate because of a complete lack of responsibility is not only allowed to still be a (relatively) free member of society, but to wear an NFL uniform. Brent had already been busted for DUI once in 2009, and in late 2012 killed teammate Jerry Brown while reportedly traveling as fast as 134 MPH in a 45 MPH zone before crashing. In the last month and a half he has managed to violate his probation twice, both times for smoking marijuana, and yet still remains an employee of the Dallas Cowboys. There's certainly plenty of failure to go around here.

The fail: The Los Angeles Lakers grossly underachieve, barely making the playoffs before being swept.
Date: 4/28/2013

We'll say this about the 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers: they were definitely the champions of the offseason. Everybody wondered who was going to slow down the Lakers with Steve Nash running the point, Kobe scoring, and Dwight Howard teaming with Pau Gasol in the post. Well, as it turns out, reality did a pretty good job. Injuries took their toll, and the bold predictions of some turned out to be hilariously wrong. After barely squeezing into the playoffs on the last day of the season, the Lakers were absolutely crushed by the San Antonio Spurs in a first round sweep that at last put a truly wretched team out of its misery.

The fail: Brandon Knight finds himself on the wrong end of Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan's personal highlight reels.
Date: 2/15/2013; 3/10/2013

Growing up, every kid who loves sports dreams of what it would be like to be on a poster. Brandon Knight knows all about it now after one particularly bad stretch where he got absolutely owned first by Kyrie Irving in the Rookie-Sophomore game at All-Star weekend and then by DeAndre Jordan in a game against the Clippers. Neither play was actually Knight's fault, either. His broken ankles against Irving look a lot like he just slipped trying to change direction, and he was simply trying to contest a lob against a man who grossly outsized him (6'3" vs. 6'11") in Jordan. Hopefully he's been attending a support group this summer with the likes of Timofey Mozgov and Kendrick Perkins.

The fail: The Knicks dress in funeral attire for "the Celtics' funeral," then lose.
Date: 5/2/2013

Maybe athletes should leave the comedy to the professionals. Deciding at the behest of Kenyon Martin to wear "funeral black" to the arena for a funeral for the Celtics' season, the Knicks went out and lost to the Celtics in overtime. But the real problem here was the timing; the game was played but two weeks after the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured over 250 others, and in Boston to boot. Now maybe they weren't trying to be disrespectful, but at best they were just being plain dumb. It made the Honey Nut Cheerios incident look like child's play.

The fail: Rihanna calls out the Knicks' J.R. Smith on Instagram for clubbing too much during the playoffs.
Date: 5/16/2013

After a rumored romance went sour, it seemed like the Knicks' J.R. Smith and Rihanna had both moved on to bigger and better things. However, it seems like Rihanna still had an ax to grind with the Knicks' mercurial sixth man, who had hit a particularly rough stretch of play at the worst possible time as his team was getting crushed by Indiana. In a message reposted by a different user, Rihanna accused Smith of clubbing too much during the playoffs, which in turn was responsible for him shooting an abysmal 29 percent on nearly 15 attempts per contest over his last eight playoff games. While Smith claimed he wasn't guilty of the accusations, maybe he should have; at least it would have explained why he sucked so badly.

The fail: The San Antonio Spurs blow a late five-point lead in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
Date: 6/18/2013

The Heat fans were filing out of the building and the ropes were being put around the court as the Spurs held a seemingly insurmountable five point lead with 28 seconds left. LeBron James bricked a three, and it looked like the game was over. But a great play by Dwyane Wade got the ball back to LeBron, who buried his next three-point attempt with 20 seconds to go. Kawhi Leonard made one of two free throws on the other end, and after LeBron missed another three it again looked like the game was over. However, Chris Bosh pulled down the rebound and found Ray Allen, who stepped back and made one of the most clutch threes in Finals history to send the game to overtime. We all know what happened after that.

The fail: The blackout at Super Bowl XLVII halts play for 34 minutes
Date: 2/4/2013

While conspiracy theories abound as to the true cause of the blackout at the Super Bowl, this much is clear: it totally changed the tenor of the game. Before the blackout, the Ravens were in complete control and looked like they were going to run the 49ers right out of the building. Jacoby Jones had just run a kickoff back 108 yards for a touchdown to give his team a 28-6 lead early in the 3rd quarter, and San Francisco looked stunned. After they got a nice 34 minute timeout, though, the Niners regrouped and rattled off 17 consecutive points to get right back into the game. Call us crazy, but we're glad it happened; at least we got an entertaining game out of it.

The fail: Mani Te'o's deceased girlfriend turns out to be a hoax.
Date: 1/16/2013

Don't you just hate it when it turns out your girlfriend isn't real? The Te'o story was one that really defied belief and could only have happened in this age where Twitter relationships have become almost the norm. While it's kind of hard to believe the former Notre Dame linebacker didn't at some point think something weird was going on, when we hear the voicemails it makes a little more sense. This may well go down as the defining story of 2013, and the year wasn't even three weeks old when it all went down.

The fail: Aaron Hernandez charged with murder.
Date: 6/27/2013

Somehow, we don't think the Patriots mind Rob Gronkowski's partying ways anymore. At least the only things he killed were his already-depleted brain cells. Harkening back to the equally-horrifying story of Rae Carruth, Aaron Hernandez was arrested just a few weeks ago for orchestrating (and perhaps carrying out) the murder of Odin Lloyd, a man who was dating the sister of Hernandez's baby mama. While we're used to crime-related drama from the NFL, this is next level stuff. Don't expect this story to go away anytime soon.