Staff Picks: The Best of VICE Sports in 2018

It was a wild year in the sports world. Big Dick Nick and the Philadelphia Eagles knocked off the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. An expansion team made it to the Stanley Cup Final. The Red Sox were virtually unstoppable all Summer and Fall. The USMNT got to watch the World Cup, which was fun. Jay Cutler came back into our lives right when we needed him. Just all in all a truly solid year in sports.

We covered these stories, and many others and that maybe didn't rise to the level of "Super Bowl MVP Big Dick Nick," so we thought we'd highlight our favorite VICE Sports stories of 2018.

We got a cool look at a regular day in an NBA player's life by spending the night with Toronto Raptors forward Serge Ibaka before the playoffs started. We ordered food from his favourite spot (they only deliver to him) and learned about his Congolese culture and upbringing.

We traveled the world to the homes of some of the NBA's up and coming stars to see where they came from, how they learned the game, and how they made it big.

We spent a good chunk of the Summer with Enes Kanter, his teammates, friends, and family and got to see more than just the NBA's goofy troll.

Ippei-kun, the magical, poetic frog mascot from Ehime Prefecture, was is in Russia for the World Cup and he tweeted through it.

You only thought you knew how bleak Charlie Brown could get, but it gets bleaker.

If Charlie Brown was too heavy for you, please enjoy this super posi hockey fan.

A candid LaMarcus Aldridge is like finding a needle in a haystack. We not only found it, we wrote about it, too.

Sports in a nutshell.

More sports, more nutshells.

And yet, there is hope for sports, for all of us.