By: Carlos Mondragon
The 2020 dunk contest is where a list of NBA players will show off their dunks and compete for #1 and take home $105,000. Although we still don't know exactly who will participate, our guess is that Zach LaVine and Dwight Howard will be in the contest. What we do know is that the 2020 Dunk Contest will be held in the Chigaco’s United Center. This will take place in February 15, 2020. The Dunk contest happens every year since 1976. There are 4 players in each contest, and they are selected by either being asked or fan voting. Each person gets 3 attempts to complete 1 dunk. They are based on a rating of 6-10. To get a 10 you need a cooler dunk, less tries to make the dunk and please the audience. Typically the people judging the dunks rang from basketball players to judges. The prize money as we said was $105,100. This isn't the only contest there is. There are also 3 point contest where and the challenge all in the all star weekend. There has only been 1 official contender for the 2020 dunk contest which is Dwight Howard. This isn't his first time entering a dunk contest. He has competed three times before and has only won once in 2008. He is famous for doing the “superman” dunk where Dwight flew in the air like superman and dunked it. Dwight Howard is currently playing for LA Lakers and is a Power Forward. He has also played in 6 different teams: Houston Rockets, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, and the Washington Wizards. He is a eight-time NBA All Star, five-time All-defensive team member, and a three-time Defensive Player of the year. The NBA dunk contest has been happening since 1976. Last years winner of the dunk contest was Hamidou Diallo of the OKC Thunder. Hamidou Diallo is a bench rider. The 2018 dunk contest winner was Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz. Donovan Micthell is also a rookie of the year. One very exciting dunk contest was in 2016 where the winner was very close between Aaron Gordon and Zach Lavine. In the end Zach pulled out the winner. People should care about the dunk contest because it is a way where NBA players show off their skills that can't be seen in normal games. I care about the dunk contest because people show unique dunks that are really cool. People care about this because they see something they don't in normal NBA games. Other people should care because it helps the NBA grow in popularity.
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![]() Miranda Arreguin Soccer has about 4 billion fans all around the world. Over the past years there have been many men and women's soccer games. The teams have received different amounts of pay and bonuses. There has also been many debates on equal pay for games. Currently according to Index, Liverpool is the best club team worldwide. Brazil is seen as the most successful team due to their 5 titles. For women’s soccer the USA soccer team is the best world wide. The USA Women's Soccer team fought for equal pay in 2019 and they receive as much support as they are against equal pay. On March 8, International Women's Day, all 28 members of the USA Women's soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S Soccer Federation. After their movement some people weren’t as supportive as others. Jermaine Jones an American soccer player ignited controversy when he claimed that their plan could “backfire real quick.” The Atlanta United Manager, Frank De Boer, has also said he doesn’t agree with the idea of equal pay. “I think for me it’s ridiculous.” Boer later regretted using the word “ridiculous” to describe the U.S. Women's movement for equal pay. Although there have been people who don't support equal pay there has been support from womens soccer fans and some players from different teams such as the men's U.S soccer team. Soccer has been a famous sport over the years and has gotten more and more fame as time goes by. There has been many different World Cups over the past years and with a Mens and Womens soccer team there has also been controversy with equal payment issues. The Men’s Soccer teams have shown support with the U.S Women's claim for equal rights. Of course there is always gonna be some people who don’t support, but so far there has been support coming from different places. The Women's World Cup and Men's World Cup has gained popularity overtime and has become an important event for many soccer fans all around the world. Equal pay for women and men’s soccer teams is tricky but the U.S team is still fighting for their rights. The Women’s World Cup occurred June 7,2019- July 7,2019. The game was in Stade de Lyon; Lyon, France. France was the home team while U.S was the away team. The game started at 11 a.m. ET (5 p.m. local). There was a sellout at the Stadium with 1,131,312 (21,756 per match) people attending the games. The World Cup was won by the USA team. The final game was against the Netherlands, who ended up in 2nd place. The final score was USA 2- Netherlands 0. Megan Rapinoe and Rose Lavelle were the scorers for the game. The third place team was Sweden and fourth place was England. Sweden won England with a leading score of 2-1. The U.S Women’s Soccer team has won the World Cup four times including their current win, and is seen as the most successful team due to their 4 titles. The U.S Women's team is one of the most successful soccer teams in the world. Their fourth title in 2019 shows how successful they have been throughout their years. They have been fighting very hard to receive equal pay and their lawsuit against the U.S Soccer Federation shows how serious they are about the topic of equal pay. The U.S Women’s Soccer team fight against equal payment is very significant because now pay in soccer is being criticized and should more equal. I support the stand that the U.S team took and I hope they areable to be more recognized and paid equally. They are helping Women Soccer teams receive more equal pay and are standing up against unequal rules. I hope that they are able to make a difference for the payment salaries in soccer and overall sports in general. ![]() By: Axel Elizondo The Champions League is a soccer tournament that takes place every year and involving the top leagues in Europe. This year the champions league was filled with some of the best teams in Europe. In total there are 32 teams that participate and only one team gets to lift the trophy. In order to qualify for the tournament, teams participate in the group stage before advancing into the group stage, the teams that place on top will then take part in the actual tournament. Another way that teams can enter is if they win the UEFA Europa League and that is another tournament but with different teams. The teams that participated in this year's tournament were Liverpool, Tottenham, Ajax, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Celtic, Benfica, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Juventus, Manchester City, Manchester United, Monaco, Napoli, PSG, Porto, Real Madrid, Roma, Valencia, and Lyon. Liverpool and Tottenham are facing each other in the Champions League final that will take place on June 6. This is the first year that two English teams will face each other in the Champions League final. All 32 teams compete from the very start and they are placed in different groups, in order to advance to the next round you have to place first or second place and there are four rounds including the final. The number of points matter and also goal difference matters because that can be another way that you can go into the next round. The points act as standings for each group, for example, teams can get max 12 points if they win all four games, only top two advances from the group to the tournament. The first game that I am gonna talk about is Liverpool v.s. Barcelona. In the first leg of the semi-final, Barcelona won 3-0, with goals by Luis Suarez, and two goals by Leo Messi. In the second leg of the semi-final, Liverpool won 4-0, advancing to the final. Divock Origi scored the opener of the game, Gini Wijnaldum scored the second and third goal of the game which leveled the game to 3-3, and Divock Origi scored the late winner of the game and it gave Liverpool the lead. Liverpool then won 4-3 on aggregate. The second game that im gonna talk about is Ajax v.s Tottenham which was the second semi-final game. Ajax won the first leg 1-0 with a goal by Donny Van De Beek. In the second leg, Tottenham won 3-2 with goals by Matthijs De Ligt, Hakim Ziyech, and Lucas Moura who scored a hat-trick and helped lead Tottenham to the Champions League Final to play against Liverpool which is also an English team. The final will be on June 6th and it will be played in Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu. There are only 4 teams left in the overall tournament. There are teams that have eliminated the big boys. Which contend as the highest teams in the tournament. Those teams were the ones that would win and had the highest win rate. All 4 teams will play this week and next week to try to get a spot for the final on June 1. Here are my predictions for this big tournament.
For the first game which is Tottenham vs Ajax, I have in mind that Ajax will win but also Tottenham could win it’s a 50/50 game. But I have Ajax winning this game but there are two games and Ajax is like a mini Barcelona which is one of the best teams in the Spanish league. This team the youngest team ever. This team has the full potential to go and try to beat this team. The second game which is Barcelona vs Liverpool and for this game I have Barcelona winning this series. Barcelona has top players and the one and only Messi. He supports his team and works well with his teammates. So they have a better chance of winning. For the Finals which is in June I have Barcelona and Ajax but who knows what could happen. After these two first games, we will pretty much see who has the most advantage to go to the finals. The stadium that they will play is in Madrid and this tournament is Road to Madrid’19. The Venue for this event changes every year. The team that has the most championships is Real Madrid but they have been eliminated. ![]() With the NBA Regular Season ending, all the basketball fans are extremely ecstatic for what’s to come: the 2019 NBA Playoffs. The playoffs is an yearly tournament that is held after the conclusion of the regular season. The best eight teams of the western conference play each other until there is a winner, who plays the winner of the eastern conference. The winner of those two teams are named NBA Champions. The champions receive rings to show off their victory over the other 29 teams, and get a banner to hang up in their arena. In case you don’t know how the playoffs work, here it is: the Playoffs are a series of postseason games to determine who the best team in the NBA is. Every players ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship, but few succeed. To enter the playoffs, you must be a top eight team statistically in your conference. Once you’re in, they pair the 1st seed with the 8th seed, the 2nd seed with the 7th seed, so on and so forth. In every round you play, you must beat the other team 4 times before moving on to the next round, which means in every round, at least 4 games will be played, and the maximum amount of games played are 7, so if you get a perfect run with 0 losses, you will be 16-0, and an NBA Champion. The team closest to ever achieving 16-0 were your one and only Golden State Warriors; they went 16-1 just last year, losing one game in the Finals against LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers. The 2019 NBA Playoffs have a variety of excellent players, all with their specialties, (and some with multiple specialties). Sports analysts believe that the Golden State Warriors are the most likely team to be named NBA Champions, considering they have won 3 of them in the last 4 years, which means they are the 2x reigning NBA Champions. The Warriors have 2 former league MVP’s (Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant), who are both two of the top 5 players in the league currently. The Warriors defeated the Los Angeles Clipper in the first round, though many people were surprised that they pushed the Warriors to a game 6, considering they don’t have any All-Stars. The Warriors are now playing the Houston Rockets, and it is currently 2-2, Warriors. Rockets defeated the Utah Jazz 4-1, though the Jazz had a rather unique defensive plan to stop James Harden from dropping a 40 bomb. Portland Trailblazers and Oklahoma City Thunder fought to their best potential, but Damian Lillard was too much for Russell Westbrook and Paul George. Dame hit a series-winning 37 foot shot at home, and stared down the camera as he got bombarded by hugs from his teammates and cheers from the fans. (Click Here for the link of that video) Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs also played in the first round, and Denver came out on top. Portland Trailblazers and Denver are currently tied, 2-2. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are favored to represent the East in the finals. They are currently playing the Boston Celtics after sweeping (sweeping; beating an opposing team in a series without losing a single game) the Detroit Pistons in the first round. The Celtics also swept their matchup, the Indiana Pacers. Bucks and Celtics are currently 3-1, Bucks, and one more win for the Bucks will advance them to the Conference finals. By: Adrian Ruelas March Madness is an annual event where the best college basketball teams perform in a tournament. Only the best is left standing and is crowned the NCAA champion. March Madness is at an end now, with every team fighting to their mightiest potential. There were a lot of shocks and surprises as the final game approached. In the first round for the Midwest, Kansas blew out Northeastern only to be defeated by Auburn, who went on to be stepped on by Virginia. Duke, one of the most promising teams in the tournament, rammed themselves all the way to the Elite Eight, only to be stopped and upset by Michigan State. Duke was favoritized by many sports analysts to be the champion, but it turned out not to be the case. Michigan State went on to the Final Four, where they lost to Texas Tech. Virginia passed with ease all the way to the Final Four as well.
By: Angelina Twist
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