Month: May 2020
“We now have to weigh the safety of store owners and employees to threats of violence,” said the city manager of Stillwater, Oklahoma.
There may be no superstar that was more forward about modeling his entire game and mentality off of another player than Kobe Bryant, who would happily tell people that his game was molded in the image of Michael Jordan.
Kobe mimicked just about everything Jordan did on the floor, and also was driven by the same insatiable desire to win and be the best. It’s something that Jordan admired about Bryant, calling him a “little brother” during his speech at Kobe’s memorial service earlier this year. Sunday night’s installment of The Last Dance will touch on their relationship, most notably the 1998 All-Star Game when they squared off in Madison Square Garden.
Ahead of that, the Chicago Bulls dug into the archives to give folks a look at their relationship in that 1998 season, with Jordan explaining after a game where cameras caught the two chatting during a free throw that he was giving the young Bryant some advice on how to perfect his patented turnaround jumper.
The teacher and the student.#TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/JM15DNN6yb
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) May 3, 2020
“He wanted to know when I turnaround on my jump shot how I lock the defense and how to feel the defense,” Jordan said. “I told him you should feel the defense with your legs. Once you feel the defense with your legs you more or less can feel where the defense is and you can take advantage of that.”
When asked if he didn’t have a problem sharing “trade secrets” in a game, Jordan said it was part of his duty to pass that on to the next generation
“Not at all. That enhances his basketball skill, and someone did that for me and certainly I’m not against giving him any kind of hints about his game if he asks. I’m certainly not going to come out and try to give him too much information. The kid, he’s learned a lot in the short amount of time he’s been in the league and, believe me, he’s going to continue to learn.”
It’s a cool video to pull from the archives and show how Jordan was willing to share those parts of the game with Kobe, as, while it’s obvious the influence of Jordan on Kobe’s game, a lot of younger fans haven’t necessarily seen that kind of concrete example of how Jordan provided that guidance to him.
The basketball world is all things Michael Jordan these days, as the 10-part ESPN docuseries The Last Dance is essentially the only game in town with the COVID-19 pandemic putting actual hoops on hold. While we wait to see what the future holds for the 2020 season and beyond, sinking into the nostalgia and stories of the Jordan Bulls has been a fun experience all around, from those that fondly remember that era of hoops as well as a younger generation experiencing Jordan’s greatness in a new light, perhaps for the first time.
One part of that era also getting a fresh look is an iconic Jordan ad campaign from Gatorade.
We wanted to #BeLikeMike then.
We want to #BeLikeMike now.
We want to #BeLikeMike forever.@ZionWilliamson @De11eDonne @JayTatum0 pic.twitter.com/BzBb0PTbz1
— Gatorade (@Gatorade) May 2, 2020
The clip has modern hoops stars (and Gatorade athletes) like Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson and WNBA star Elena Delle Donne showing off their skills interspersed with clips from the original campaign, which featured Jordan highlights and other young children emulating his game. The message is clear: all of those people that wanted to Be Like Mike are who they are by following the sports drink company’s advice.
Gatorade also put together GIFs and TikToks of the Be Like Mike campaign, which is a nice little bonus.
We’ll see if any of these are usable reaction GIFs for The Last Dance on Sunday night, but something tells me they’ll be of use at some point very soon.
Celebrity quarantine entertainment got off to a rocky start, thanks to Gal Gadot’s star-studded, well-intentioned but much maligned “Imagine” video. But they got better. Performers have figured out clever and resourceful ways to keep us (and themselves) amused and distracted, from late night performers to SNL to Parks and Recreation’s acclaimed reunion special. And now, as caught by Entertainment Weekly, we what’s arguably the best one so far — the anti-“Imagine” — has arrived.
It’s called the “Boss Bitch Fight Challenge,” and it was spearheaded by legendary stunt double and actress Zoë Bell. Bell has doubled and acted alongside the rich and famous, and she was able to wrangle over two dozen actresses and fellow stunt doubles for what’s essentially Richard Linklater’s Slacker but with fighting.
The premise is simple: Bell is bored during lockdown and wants to hang with some friends. So she does the next best thing: She charges her cameraphone with one of her first-rate high kicks, delivering a blow to the camera…and, with the magic of editing, into the face of Lucy Lawless, shooting from her own home. Lawless than delivers a blow to stunt double Tara Macken, who gives one to Drew Barrymore, who attacks Juliette Lewis, and so on and so forth.
The cast is all-female and it’s impressive; among the pugilists are Cameron Diaz, Kaitlin Olson, Florence Pugh, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Julia Butters, Daryl Hannah, Tracie Thomas, Rosie Perez, Thandie Newton, Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, and many more still. They aren’t always punches or kicks; one person tickles her successor, while another merely gets a dog lick to the face. Where most of the participants in the “Imagine” video seemed barely committed, here the opposite is very much true. Who needs new movies?
(Via EW)
