Saturday February 18th Top Sports News

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NFL:

• A preliminary agreement has been reached on the new Vikings Stadium.
• An 18 game season still looks like an option says Roger Goodell.
• DeSean Jackson looks like he is staying in Philly as the Eagles will apply their franchise tag on him.
• Hue Jackson will serve as assistant coach helping the secondary and special teams of the Cincinnati Bengals.

NBA:

• The specifics of J.R. Smith's contract with the Knicks are : $2.5 million for a year and a player option for the second year according to Adrian Wojnarowski.
• Because of the J.R. Smith signing the Knicks had to cut a player from the roster. While every Knicks fan wanted the team to cut Mike Bibby the Knicks decided to cut Renaldo Balkman, it is the second time that they have cut him. The Knicks didn't cut Bibby because of lacking PG depth. Balkman tweeted about him getting cut, you gotta feel for the guy and what's even weirder is that the new Knick, J.R. Smith retweeted this.. It's like : "I took your job."

• The NBA announced the teams and players that will compete in the HAIER Shooting Stars Competion and they are the following: Team New York (Cappie Pondexter, Allan Houston and Landry Fields), Team Texas (Sophia Young, Kenny Smith and Chandler Parsons), Team Atlanta (Lindsey Harding, Steve Smith and Joe Johnson) and Team Florida (Marie Ferdinand, Dennis Scott and Jameer Nelson).
• New Yorkers can finally watch Linsanity as Time Warner and MSG Network finally reached a deal and the channel is back on the cable company. Well that took a long time.
• The losing streak ends at 16 as the Bobcats finally won as they beat the Raptors 98-91. What a nice present from the team to their owner as it is Michael Jordan's birthday. Happy Birthday Michael Jordan! 
• Talk about closing a game. Last night the Magic ended the game with a 17-0 run against the Bucks as they won the game 94-85. Dwight Howard had a double-double as he got 26 points and 20 rebounds while Ryan Anderson almost had a double-double as he had 23 points and 9 rebounds.
• "All he does is Lin" is no more as the Knicks fell to the Hornets 89-85 but Linsanity still exists as Jeremy Lin was the top scorer of the game with STAT as they both had 26 points. Ariza led the Hornets to their 3rd straight win as he had 25 points and 8 rebounds. Linsanity Meter: 3

NHL:

• According to HockeyyInsiderr Rick Nash's preferred destination are the Montreal Canadiens. This saga should end in the next week as Nash is expected to get traded before the deadline and the team that will get him is expected to pay a hefty price.
• Another trade was made today as the Habs sent Hal Gill and a 2013 5th round pick to the Predators for Blake Geoffrion, Robert Slaney and a 2012 2nd round pick.
• The Red Wings' home game winning streak reached 22 as Pavel Datsyuk scored with five seconds left in the game.
• The Capitals won the division matchup as they beat the Florida Panthers 2-1 as Ovechkin and Semin both scored a goal.
• The Bruins lost even more ground on the Rangers as they lost to the Winnipeg Jets 4-2 as Bryan Little scored twice.

MLB:

•  Tim Wakefield decided to retire than to return to the Red Sox for an 18th year with the team. A true Boston Red Sox legend.

• The Yankees and Pirates agreed on a trade for A.J. Burnett that will send him and $18.1 million to the Bucs while the Yankees will get Exicardo Cayones who is an outfielder and Diego Moreno a right handed pitcher. This looks like a win-win trade as the Pirates got a pitcher (ace sometimes) and the Yankees dumped some of A.J.'s salary.

• In other trade news, the Rangers are close to completing a trade with the A's for Koji Uehara according to Ken Rosenthal. The A's are silently building a nice team.
• The Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox could not reach a compensation deal on Theo Epstein so the deal is now on the commissioner's hands and according to Phil Rogers he has spent a lot of time studying the case.

Soccer:

• In Italy Inter Milan lost again, this time to Bologna 0-3 as Vaio scored two goals and Aquafresca scored the other. In the other game of the day Fiorentina lost to Napoli. Ezequiel Lavezzi scored one goal while the other two came from Edinson Cavani.
• In England there is FA Cup action tomorrow. Teams like Chelsea and Arsenal could use this to rebound from their struggles.

Predicting tonight's games:

• NBA
• Spurs over Clippers
• Chicago over New Jersey
• Warriors over Grizzlies
• Atlanta over Portland
• NHL
• Penguins over Flyers
• Chicago over Colombus
• Blues over Wild
• Carolina over New York Islanders
• Capitals over Bolts
• Vancouver over Toronto
• Coyotes over Stars
• Los Angeles over Calgary

Noteworthy thing of the day:


David Letterman features a Top 10 and two days ago it was about the 10 worst Jeremy Lin puns. Check out the video below. Linsanity has taken the world by storm.

(POST WILL BE UPDATED AS THE DAY GOES ON)