Aaron Gordon holds the undisputed crown of best Dunk Contest dunker to never win, as he appeared three times and put forth two classic contests, coming out just on the losing side of legendary battles with Zach LaVine and Derrick Jones Jr.
The first was an all-timer that didn’t feature much controversy, even if Gordon felt he should’ve won, but the latter saw accusations of improper judging by Dwyane Wade to help a Miami Heat player get the win. Gordon released a diss track about Wade after and changed his number to 50 in Denver (he’s since changed again to 32) to highlight how he had the most 50-point dunks in Dunk Contest history.
All of that is to say, Gordon believes strongly in his case for being one of the best to ever grace a Dunk Contest, and his dunk highlight reel from 2016 and 2020 is up there with the all-time best. To Gordon, it’s better than anyone’s Dunk Contest reel, as he told FanDuel’s “Run It Back” show on Wednesday, claiming his best four dunks are better than Vince Carter’s iconic 2000 performance.
It is a bold statement, to say the least, as Carter’s showing in 2000 is considered the best of all-time. That said, in a vacuum, Gordon is probably right. He has some truly outrageous dunks in his catalog (and has more contests to pull from), but it also highlights the challenge of comparing players across eras. What Carter did in 2000 was so wildly different than anything anyone had seen that it blew everyone’s minds. Now, we see guys do those same dunks (or even add a little bit more to them) in Dunk Contests. Gordon’s dunks are also things we’ve never seen, and because everyone builds on what we’ve seen before, they are even more difficult to execute than what Carter did.
I think what is a separator for Carter is he was doing things at a level no one could even come close to in his contest, while Gordon went up against two equals in LaVine and Jones Jr. Still, Gordon certainly has a case as one of the all-time greats, which makes it even more incredible that he never won one.
Welcome to SNX DLX, your weekly roundup of the best sneakers to hit the internet. February 2025 just might go down as one of the strongest months of the year for sneaker releases. Now granted, we know the year is still young, and we’re only in the second month of it, but this month has delivered us week after week of strong — albeit small in quantity — drops.
We’ve looked ahead to next week, and it seems like the month is closing strong too, so March will have a hell of a time competing. This week, we’re getting an eye-catching new SB Dunk colorway, a spacey Foamposite One, a JJJJound Adidas link up, the return of Joe Freshgoods at New Balance, and a new Jordan 3 colorway.
Let’s dive into the best sneakers dropping this week.
This week brings our first notable Dunk of the year! The Black and Aluminum SB Dunk features a suede upper in a duotone black and aluminum colorway with a padded tongue, a matching outsole, and that classic durable SB Dunk build.
Here is hoping we get more dope Dunks as the year progresses, as last year, the SB love was scarce.
The Nike SB Dunk Low Black and Aluminum is out now for a retail price of $115. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.
The legendary Galaxy Air Foamposite One has returned! First released in 2012, the Galaxy features an all-over constellation printed upper with glow-in-the-dark details, a milky outsole, and a shifting colorway that shimmers when the light hits it at the right angles.
It’s a dope design that reflects the Foamposite One’s futuristic build.
The Air Foamposite One Galaxy is set to drop on February 21st at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $230. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.
JJJJound is giving the legendary Superstar a premium upgrade. We love to see this sort of appreciation for one of Adidas all-time-greatest silhouettes. This elevated take on the JJJJound features a premium leather upper, a textured three-stripe, gold foil branding, and German handmade construction. The sneaker is available in a white or black colorway.
Anytime the big brands need an elevated take on a classic, they should call JJJJound. The brand is batting 1000.
The JJJJound x Adidas Superstar is set to drop on February 20th at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $250. Pick up a pair here.
New Balance has been incredibly quiet this year, and as NB fans, it’s been pretty frustrating, but the wait was worth it because this week we’re not just getting a new colorway of the 992. We’re getting a new colorway designed by the mighty Joe Freshgoods, a designer who is quite possibly New Balance’s greatest collaborator.
The 992 Aged Well features a blush pink colorway with a mesh build, premium pig suede overlays, and leather details on the tongue and heel tab. Welcome back NB!
The Joe Freshgoods x New Balance 992 Aged Well is set to drop on February 21st for a retail price of $220. Join the raffle at the Joe Freshgoods online store.
Here is a weird fact about Michael Jordan — according to Nike, MJ played many games with a pair of blue practice shorts underneath his Bulls kit. Why wasn’t this included in The Last Dance? We would’ve taken a whole episode about these magical shorts!
Nike used this little known fact about Jordan as the key inspiration for this Jordan 3 colorway. Dubbed Lucky Shorts, this AJ-3 features a full-grain leather upper with suede overlays and a simple white and blue colorway. Will they be as lucky as Jordan’s hidden shorts? Probably not, but hey, who knows, these sneakers might be the key to your future success.
The Nike Air Jordan 3 Lucky Shorts is set to drop on February 22nd at 7:00 AM PST for a retail price of $200. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.
James Harden’s latest from Adidas is elegant, sleek, and aerodynamic. The sneaker features a lightweight upper made from synthetic material with some textile elements over a BOOST midsole with Lightstrike cushioning.
The sneaker features a black base with Cloud White wrapping and a bright green undersole with multi-directional traction. We love to see this sort of performance-focused approach from Adidas. The brand continues to kill it with their signature basketball sneakers.
The Adidas Harden Volume 9 Cloud White is set to drop on February 22nd at 12:00 AM PST for a retail price of $160. Pick up a pair at Adidas or aftermarket sites like GOAT and Flight Club.
Disclaimer: While all of the products recommended here were chosen independently by our editorial staff, Uproxx may receive payment to direct readers to certain retail vendors who are offering these products for purchase.
(Man, you know that a post with a title like this ^^^ is going to have SPOILERS…)
Cobra Kai will never die, but two core characters bit the dust in the sixth (and final) season‘s penultimate episode. And I would be lying if I didn’t admit to enjoying the spectacle, mainly because Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) has loomed large as a hot-tub-loving villain since The Karate Kid Part III, and he died as he lived. It was only fitting that he would be ambushed on his yacht, and the ambusher in question was John Kreese (Martin Kove), who had redeemed himself by essentially admitting to have crushed the spirit of Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) too many years ago, ruining much of his adulthood. And ultimately, Kreese went out protecting Johnny after admitting that the teacher had been “surpassed” by the student. [Sob.]
Johnny also did earn a delicious ending at the Sekai Taikai tournament (and, in a full-circle moment, he even received a “You’re alright, Lawrence” from Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso), but first, the ambush happened. This involved Kreese and Silver grappling on the yacht’s deck, and Kreese decided what the hell, and he threw his cigar toward some propane, which led to an explosion that presumably killed them both. Or did it?
Did Kreese And Silver Really Die In Cobra Kai‘s Penultimate Episode?
Almost definitely. Like there’s a 99.9999% chance they are toast (despite the absence of visible bodies), according to series co-creator Hayden Schlossberg while speaking with Screenrant:
“We knew that the audience wanted to see Kreese and Silver go at it. It’s … something that we’ve [had] teed up for a while. We had a taste of it at the Sekai Taikai, [but] Johnny intervened there. The difference this time is it’s Kreese stopping Silver from doing something horrible to Johnny, which would take him out of the tournament. It’s the moment of sacrifice we’ve been waiting to see [from] Kreese.
We don’t see the bodies afterward. John Kreese has come back from the dead before, but this [time it] looks like they’ve [both] been taken off the table.”
For the record, Schlossberg’s co-creators, Jon Hurwitz and Josh Heald, do agree with (via a TV Line interview) Silver and Kreese are dead for good.
And how does Daniel feel about this? Well, the series didn’t enlighten viewers on that subject, but Macchio (while noting that Daniel “is still, at his core, a good-hearted human being”) feels as though “he’d probably have mixed emotions about it. They got what was coming to them, but on the flip side, it’s just kind of disturbing and unfortunate.” Yet I’m not nearly as good of a person as Mr. LaRusso because I cheered. These two were so relentlessly dedicated to being karate villains that it’s hard to imagine them allowing everybody else (on a long-term basis) to live their lives peacefully and without interference. Besides, it’s nice to put a bow on the franchise’s two big baddies before the Karate Kid Legends movie, arriving later this year.
Cobra Kai‘s six seasons are now streaming on Netflix.
We nearly lived in a world where Ozzy Osbourne was in Pirates Of The Caribbean.
On a new episode of the The Magnificent Others With Billy Corgan podcast, Sharon teased the Smashing Pumpkins leader, “Do you want to know the biggest mistake I ever made with Ozzy?” Corgan was intrigued and Sharon said:
“He got offered to go and read for Pirates Of The Caribbean, and I’ve never said this to anyone: I said no. Now wouldn’t he have been perfect?”
Ozzy is a fan of Pirates star Johnny Depp, specifically of his abilities to both act and play music: In a 2024 interview, he said, “There was a time when rock stars wanted to be movie stars and movie stars wanted to be rock stars. Make your f*cking mind up what you want to do! Why do you want to be a rock star when you want to be in movies? There ain’t many that can do it all and pull it off. Johnny Depp is pretty good at doing both.”
Meanwhile, Sharon did eventually get in on the pirate game herself with her children’s bookMama Hook Knows Best: A Pirate Parent’s Favorite Fables. However, that’s about as close as an Osbourne has been to the Pirates movies.
Check out the full The Magnificent Others episode above.
If you’ve been paying even cursory attention to indie rock in recent years, then you’ve likely noticed it’s gotten a lot twangier. From Wednesday and Hovvdy to Julien Baker and Torres, alt-country has been the lingua franca for indie rockers of all stripes. With Friendship, however, it’s been a core part of their sound since their 2015 debut, and it still is with their latest record, Caveman Wakes Up. The Philly band’s second album for Merge is another vehicle for Dan Wriggins’ lived-in, universal songwriting.
Wriggins litters his music with quotidian imagery: dishes in the sink, roommates playing Resident Evil, a landscaper rolling down sod. But, it’s in these everyday occurrences where striking profundity lurks. Like country music itself, a genre so often predicated on “three chords and the truth,” Friendship unearths meaning in the seemingly meaningless.
Ahead of the album’s release in May, Wriggins sat down with Uproxx to talk about Nanci Griffith, mushroom pizza, backpack leaf blowers, and more in our latest Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Good songs, played right.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
Good songs, played right.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
The answer is probably Kurt Wagner but he’d get bashful if he heard that so I’ll say his pal the late great Vic Chesnutt, who gave me an incredible number of classic lightbulb moments in terms of form and lyrical merging, like “oh, that can be a song too???”
Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?
Mushroom pizza somewhere in Northern Maine. Maybe the town of Allagash. It wasn’t that good a pizza but I was very very hungry.
Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.
Similar to the pizza situation, a jam band I can’t remember the name of at a long-defunct all-ages venue in Portland, Maine called the Station, which was in the shopping plaza on St. John Street. I was probably 16. I remember there were six or seven of them, a horn player, a kit drummer and a percussionist, they played like maniacs to an audience of five or so; it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.
What song never fails to make you emotional?
Nanci Griffith’s “Love At The Five & Dime.”
What’s the last thing you Googled?
Map of Maine to answer about the pizza.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
We stayed at a punk house in Wilmington, NC once where the shower was full of cat sh*t and the two options for sleeping were the living room or the attic, a sort of Scylla and Charybdis situation because the living room couches were comfortable-ish, but there was a party going on all night, so we were just in our sleeping bags trying to sleep in the midst of drunken revelry. The attic was quieter but not comfortable and the number of dead cockroaches up there presaged the number of live ones. One guy who lived in that house was wearing a loincloth constructed from two bandanas, one in front and one behind. For all I know, he still is.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?
We love to play in Philadelphia, PA, the cultural capital of the world. And I don’t know; we want to play everywhere. I imagine Mexico City would rule.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
CHERISH.
What’s one of your hidden talents?
Good with a backpack leaf blower.
If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?
Not sure how to answer this. I suppose I would have to research various organizations thoroughly. I don’t know enough about that because I don’t have any money. Food banks and housing programs in the Philadelphia area might be a place to start. It’s hard for me to tell how to convert USD into effective global relief efforts. But I know that Palestine will be free.
What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?
No idea whatsoever. Maybe we’re all screwed. I hope not. As often as I encounter evidence that huge numbers of people dig slop, I encounter the opposite: undeniable signs of the curious, marvelous soul.
You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.
I always wanted to see the Meat Puppets. Do they tour ever anymore? Meat Puppets, MJ Lenderman, ML Buch, Mary Margaret O’Hara, and let’s say Prince in ’87. So I guess it has to be held in some type of time-bending vortex area. Maybe the Puppets know of one in Arizona.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?
Dray Leason, on job., tks. -trek
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
No story, just thought it would look cool.
What is your pre-show ritual?
Four private torments.
Who was your first celebrity crush?
Probably N. Portman in Phantom Menace.
You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?
Rent a kickass villa in Spain or Greece or something and invite every Philly punk I can think of.
What is your biggest fear?
That the numbness I thought my soul would shed as I got older will only grow more intractable each year.
Caveman Wakes Up is out 5/16 via Merge Records. Find more information here.
Ahead of her sold-out residency at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles next month, Suki Waterhouse has released a new song. “Dream Woman,” which was written by Waterhouse and Natalie Findlay, starts off sounding like a heavenly, well, dream — there’s even a harp. But once the assertive chorus hits, you bolt wide awake to Waterhouse repeating “I can be your dream woman.”
“When I’ve finished [writing a] song and feel like it rings so truthfully, there’s such an excitement for me in that I know it’s going to be shared,” Waterhouse told Uproxx last year. “There’s that dream that it connects with everyone else, and then you kind of get to throw this party, which is going on tour, and everyone comes together, and it’s not really my song anymore. It’s everybody else’s. When you get a song that connects to other people, and then you get to be the host of this place where you just get to exorcise those feelings together, I’m always like, this is the coolest job ever.”
Watch the video for “Dream Woman” above. Below, check out Waterhouse’s upcoming live dates.
Suki Waterhouse’s 2025 Tour Dates
03/03 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
03/04 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
03/05 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
03/07 — Austin, TX @ Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds Festival
05/18 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court Block Party
08/15-08/17 — Biddinghuizen, NL @ Lowlands Festival
08/15 — Charleville-Mézières, FR @ Cabaret Vert Music Festival
08/20 — Paris, FR @ Rock En Seine Festival
08/22 — Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival
08/24 — Reading, UK @ Reading Festivals
08/30-08/31 — Munich, DE @ Super Bloom Festival
The days after the All-Star break are a particularly slow time in the world of NBA news. The trade deadline has passed and there aren’t games for a few days, which means there’s a lot of time to fill on podcasts and in columns and you can only spend so much of it coming up with ideas to make All-Star weekend better.
That can mean unloading the notebook for reporters and insiders, and this weekend Howard Beck of The Ringer dropped a brief nugget on the Real Ones podcast that got a lot of traction. Beck said an executive told him to “keep an eye on” Ja Morant this summer if the Grizzlies were to have another early exit from the playoffs, indicating there was at least some belief Memphis could look to move the former All-Star guard.
With nothing else going on the last couple of days, that has been a point of conversation in the NBA as folks are always wondering who will be the next star to hit the market. In Memphis, that wasn’t something people were very happy about, and Grizzlies GM Zach Kleiman gave a statement to Drew Hill of the Daily Memphian that made it very clear that Morant was not going to get traded, calling it a “fantasy” of other executives.
“I can’t blame other “executives” for fantasizing about us trading Ja,” Kleiman said. “But it’s just that – fantasy. We are not trading Ja. Continue to underestimate Ja, this team and this city, and we will let our performance on the floor speak for itself. I’m not going to give this nonsense further oxygen and look forward to getting back to basketball.”
It’s smart of Kleiman to shut this down, and unlike Pat Riley’s statement from earlier this year about the Heat not trading Jimmy Butler, this is not a situation where there’s a trade request battle going on behind the scenes. A “no comment” would’ve only made things worse, so Kleiman does a good job of making it clear these rumors came from other teams — noting why they’d want them to be true in the process — and then shut down the idea and says they’re going to move on.
After what happened in Dallas with Luka Doncic, I think everyone around the league is curious to see if there is a real shift in how teams look at who is a max guy. Morant has three more years on his contract after this one, so unlike Doncic, there’s not a looming extension decision in the immediate future, but I also think people have been a bit too quick to point to the Luka trade as the beginning of a league-wide trend rather than considering it just might be a wildly erratic decision by a relatively new GM and ownership group.
Back in 2010, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé had a major pop moment when they collaborated on “Telephone” from Gaga’s The Fame Monster. For years, fans have wondered if there would be a sequel, and now Gaga has confirmed it.
Gaga took a lie detector test for a new Vanity Fair video, and in it, she was asked if she still plans to continue her and Beyoncé’s “Telephone” video, since it ends by saying “to be continued.” She said she does, but she’s not sure when. Then she was asked if Beyoncé will be in the video. She smiled and said simply, “Maybe.”
This follows some 2024 speculation that a “Telephone” sequel was on the way. In a Cowboy Carter teaser video, Bey was seen riding a taxi through a desert, which reminded some of the end of the “Telephone” video, which sees Gaga and Beyoncé leaving in a getaway car.
Ultimately, though, Gaga didn’t end up contributing to Cowboy Carter. But, there was a line from the album that might be considered a “Telephone” nod: On the “Dolly P” interlude, Dolly Parton refers to Beyoncé as “Miss Honey Bee,” and Honey Bee was the name of Beyoncé’s character in the “Telephone” video.
However, in the opener, the Americans torched the Serbian side led by Nikola Jokic and Bogdan Bogdanovic, with Kevin Durant making quite the statement in his first game playing with Team USA. Durant scored 21 points in the first half and didn’t miss a single shot, as Serbia simply had no answers for the future Hall of Famer.
On Netflix’s “Court of Gold” documentary, we got a behind-the-scenes look at the Serbia locker room at halftime, where Jokic and the Serbian coach were absolutely ripping into their team about how they were covering Durant.
It’s a pretty incredible look at the team dynamics in the Serbian locker room, with Jokic pleading with his guys to ignore Bam Adebayo if he’s out on the perimeter if it’s a choice between defending Bam or KD. Once the coach steps in, he didn’t mince words at all when getting after his guys, eventually saying “it was my bad, I should’ve assigned a different player to guard Durant,” which had to cut deep for the poor guy that was getting torched.
While they didn’t make a real charge in the second half in what became a blowout for the Americans, they did seem to learn something from the opener in group stage and nearly pulled off the upset in their semifinal rematch. Unfortunately for the Serbians in that game it was Curry, not Durant, that they couldn’t figure out how to contain.
Chloe Moriondo has a new album coming out soon. The indie-pop star is “f*cking ecstatic” for you to hear it.
Oyster is the “Fruity” singer’s first full-length effort in three years, and as Moriondo said in a statement, “I’m so f*cking ecstatic for this album to be out. I’ve been yearning to release it since its conception and I’m bursting at the shell trying not to leak it all now. It’s full of vulnerability, frivolous crushes, despair, parties, and 17 billion tons of salt water.” She added, “The world is my oyster, and soon it will be yours, too!”
Along with the album announcement, Moriondo also shared the video for her alluring new single “Hate It.” Don’t let the title fool you: you will love it.
You can watch the “Hate It” video above, while the Oyster album cover and tracklist and Moriondo’s 2025 tour dates can be found below.
04/24 — Detroit, MI @ El Club
04/25 — Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
04/26 — Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
04/29 — Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
05/01 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Soundwell
05/03 — Seattle, WA @ Neumos
05/04 — Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
05/06 — San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
05/08 — San Diego, CA @ Soma SideStage
05/09 — Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
05/10 — Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
05/12 — Austin, TX @ Antone’s
05/13 — Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
05/15 — Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
05/16 — Carrboro, NC @ Motorco
05/17 — Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
05/18 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
05/20 — New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
05/21 — Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
05/23 — Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
Oyster is out 3/28 via Public Consumption/Atlantic Music Group. Find more information here.
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