Month: August 2020

What makes a bottle of whiskey “the best?” That’s a minefield and often entirely subjective. What I love to sip on after a long week isn’t going to be what you love to sip on. Neither of us is wrong — we just have different palates due to living different lives. Basically, the very notion of finding the best bottle of whiskey is a bit of a lie.

Still, there are expressions that are universally beloved by both the public and the people in whiskey who rate the stuff for a living. Among those experts is a crew of tasters who work tirelessly to rate booze every year for the Ultimate Spirits Challenge. The blind tastings run by the USC occur over the span of two months in Hawthorne, New York. This is not a whirlwind tasting event over a single weekend. It’s slow, meticulous, and detailed — allowing the judges plenty of breathing room to decide which drams they dug the most.

Is it perfect? Well, nothing is. Still, the methodology used helps point us in the right direction if we insist on looking for that unattainable best dram of whiskey. That’s why we went through and pulled the best of the #1 rated expression in each and every whiskey style judged during the recent 2020 Ultimate Spirits Challenge.

Check out the 17 entries below.

Best Flavored Whiskey: Jameson Cold Brew (92 points)

ABV: 30%
Distillery: New Midleton Distillery, County Cork (Pernod Ricard)
Average Price: $30

This Whiskey:

The blend of coffee liqueur and classic Jameson Irish Whiskey is a treat. The bottle helps give credence to the whole flavored whiskey genre with expert craftsmanship and real accessibility in both flavor and price.

Tasting Notes (ours):

I dig this. The nose opens with a nice balance of vanilla and orange zest. That serves as a base for a hint of oaky spice and plenty of coffee bitterness with a velvet texture. That bitterness combines with the vanilla and edges into a lush dark chocolate territory near the end.

Our thoughts:

Grab a bottle for mixing up with your next Irish Coffee, espresso martini, or a surprisingly tasty highball.

Best Irish/Blended: Jameson Bow Street Cask Strength 18 Years (95 points)

ABV: 55.3%
Distillery: New Midleton Distillery, County Cork & Jameson Distillery Bow Street, Dublin (Pernod Ricard)
Average Price: $165

The Whiskey:

This whiskey swings for the fences and it works. The juice is created down at the New Midleton Distillery in Cork where it’s aged for 18 long years in both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Then it’s transported up to Dublin’s Bow Street for a finishing rest in new American oak for up to 12 months.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Breakfast cakes, light honey, sweet tobacco, and slight char create a layered set of aromas. The flavor explodes in the mouth with baking spices, juicy and tangy nectarine, vanilla, and light toffee. The robust flavors integrate seamlessly into the satiny texture from start to finish.”

Our Thoughts:

If you can get your hands on this bottle, buy two. Drink one now and save one for later, and don’t be afraid to add a few drops of water to open it up.

Best Canadian: Heaven’s Door Bootleg Series 2019 Edition 26 Year Old (96 points)

ABV: 55.75%
Distillery: Sourced in Canada
Average Price: $550

The Whiskey:

Bob Dylan’s whiskey line is a legitimate entry in the whiskey world — celebrity endorsements aside. The sourced juice is a well-kept secret, but their 26-year-old Bootleg Series is so good, it doesn’t really matter. The juice is finished in the iconic and very rare Mizunara casks and it leads to a truly unique dram.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Exotic, yet soft aromas of coconut, pink peppercorn, dried mango, and orange blossom honey. Exceptionally smooth and bright on the palate, which belies its 26-year-old age statement; nectarine and red plum are followed by walnut and brown sugar. A triumphant whisky, indeed.”

Our thoughts:

We were lucky enough to taste this one recently. It lives up the hype and then some. Sip it with a drop or two of water.

Best Scotch/Blended Malt: Wemyss Malts Peat Chimney (96 points)

ABV: 46%
Distillery: Wemyss Vintage Malts, Edinburgh, UK
Average Price: $45

The Whisky:

This dram is a peat-lover’s sip. The juice is drawn from four whisky regions around Scotland with a focus on the peaty Islay products. The final blend is a great example of how accessible (and sippable) a well-crafted blend can be.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“This aptly named whisky is smokey through and through. Intertwined with spice and campfire smoke, flavors of sweet oats, wheat, and hay are earthy and mild. A pleasantly balanced smoked meat flavor lingers on the palate.”

Our thoughts:

The price is low enough that you can try this if you’re interested in peaty whisky but not quite sure you’re going to love all that smoket.

Best Irish/Single Malt: Teeling Single Cask (96 points)

ABV: 55.1%
Distillery: Teeling Distillery, Dublin
Average Price: $110

The Whiskey:

Teeling’s Single Cask expressions are unique experiences. Their standard Single Malt outing blends malted barley whiskeys aged in sherry, Port, Madeira, White Burgundy, and Cabernet Sauvignon casks. This bottle refines that further by bottling its juice from just one of those casks (in this case, sherry) that hit just the right mark for aged perfection before going into the bottle unfussed with.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“This amber-hued whiskey is full of baking spice, vanilla, and nutty aromas. Bold and rich, flavors of deeply roasted chestnut mix with red and yellow stone fruits. The thick velvety texture is full of spicy mace and cinnamon with a persistent nutty undertone.”

Our thoughts:

This is a great bottle to pick up once a year because you’re going to get something wholly unique (and tasty) each time.

Best Bottled-in-Bond: Henry McKenna Bottled-in-Bond 10 Years Old (96 points)

ABV: 50%
Distillery: Heaven Hill Distillery, Bardstown, KY
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This is a solid bottle that’s not going to be this cheap much longer. The juice is touched with a note of rye and aged in a bonded rickhouse under the Fed’s watchful eye. The result is a damn fine dram.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Bright and honey-tinged on the nose, with suggestions of cedar, lemon tart, and baked wheat. Full-bodied and round on the palate; warm Panettone, baked apricot, and cinnamon come forward before hints of Brazil nut and cocoa last on the tongue.”

Our thoughts:

Makes for a great sipper and an even better cocktail base.

Best American/Single Malt: Westland Garryana 2019 Edition 4|1 (96 points)

ABV: 50%
Distillery: Westland Distillery, Seattle, WA
Average Price: $150

The Whiskey:

Seattle’s Westland Native Oak series continues to wow. This edition was aged in Garry oak, which is local to the Pacific Northwest. The juice is supported by single malts also aged in ex-bourbon, ex-rye, and former Pedro Ximenez sherry casks, giving this sip a serious depth.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Robust aromas are earthy, reminiscent of wet earth, peach pit, hay, and a touch of honey. The round and plush texture instantly fills the mouth as distinctive malt and toasted peanut flavors develop into a spiced yet soft nougat finish. A unique and spectacular whiskey.”

Our thoughts:

This was a small bottling of fewer than 4,000 bottles. There’s really nothing else like it right now.

Best Scotch/Blended: Dewar’s Double Double Aged 27 Years (97 points)

ABV: 46%
Distillery: John Dewar & Sons, Aberfeldy, UK (Barcardi)
Average Price: $100

The Whisky:

Master blender Stephanie Macleod created a masterpiece with the Double Double four-step aging process. Step one: aging single malt and single grain whiskies for 27 long years. The malts are then blended, so are the grains and they rest again. All of that is blended together and rested. Finally, the juice is finished in ex-Palo Cortado sherry casks.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Aromas of fresh buttery biscuits are toasty and light. Impeccably smooth in the mouth, subtle cooked grain notes quickly turn into deep, bold flavors of toasted nuts, browned butter, and toffee brittle with hints of dried fruits coming through. A powerful and delicious whisky.”

Our thoughts:

This bottle could easily cost three or four times the price tag right now. Snatch up as many as you can and enjoy them for the next few years with a few drops of water in each dram.

Best Scotch/Island Single Malt: Highland Park Aged 21 Years (97 points)

ABV: 46%
Distillery: Highland Park, Orkney, UK
Average Price: $350

The Whisky:

This is a wildly popular expression that’s not available on the primary whisky market in the U.S. (it’s a global release though). The juice is aged in sherry casks from the U.S., not Spain. The result is a very unique expression that’s worth the effort to track down.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Stately nose of dried apricot, plum preserves, flint, heather honey, and sea breeze. A perfectly balanced palate offers playful tension between smoke, stone fruit, and tinges of rancio which give way to sweet spice and smoked meats on the finish. This is a singular dram if there ever was one.”

Our thoughts:

There are probably only one or two occasions where you should spend this much on a bottle of whisky. We’ll let you decide what those are for yourself.

Best Scotch/Islay Single Malt: Kilchoman Sanaig (97 points)

ABV: 46%
Distillery: Kilchoman Distillery, Bruichladdich, UK
Average Price: $70

The Whisky:

This small whisky hits big notes. The malted barley spirit is aged in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks with an emphasis on the sherry in this case.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Roasted fig, cedar smoke, and chocolate are full and rich aromas. The plush texture balances the intense campfire smoke, with flavors of berries, smoked meats, and oats. Impressively smooth throughout, nutty toffee and smoked cacao round out the finish.”

Our thoughts:

This is an easy sipper at a fairly easy price and works well in a highball.

Best World Whisk(e)y: The Matsui Mizunara Cask (97 points)

ABV: 48%
Distillery: Kurayoshi Distillery, Tottori Prefecture
Average Price: $90

The Whiskey:

This is a rare bottle that’s findable and worth the price. The whisky is aged in the rare Mizunara casks and cut with spring water from Mt. Daisen, next to the distillery.

Tasting Notes:

“Distinctive aromas of toasted cereal grains with dried fruit and flowers are fresh and enticing. The robust flavors explode in the mouth with roasted grain supported by softly sweet malt and expertly balanced spice, all leading to a silken finish. An absolute pleasure to drink.”

Our thoughts:

While the price is high, this is a great gateway Japanese whisky that’ll work wonders as a sipper or highball base.

Best American: Barrell Dovetail (97 points)

ABV: 62.15%
Distillery: Barrell Craft Spirits, Louisville, KY (Sourced)
Average Price: $85

The Whiskey:

This whiskey is a blend of ideas and flavors. It’s meant to marry oaky bourbon with bold red wine, French oak, Spanish Port, and rummy blackstrap molasses. The result is an American whiskey unlike any other.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Ebullient nose of ripe red berries and blossom is anchored by brown sugar, leather, lanolin, and wildflower honey. Rich and powerful on the palate, it is tempered by decadent flavors of maple cream, molasses, and cherry preserves. A truly dynamic and delicious whiskey.”

Our thoughts:

This is the sort of bottle that challenges the advanced drinker. You’ll need to add a little water to really open up all those notes.

Best Irish/Single Pot Still: Green Spot Chateau Leoville Barton (98 points)

ABV: 46%
Distillery: New Midleton Distillery, County Cork (Pernod Ricard)
Average Price: $100

The Whiskey:

There’s a deep history to this whiskey from Irish mercenaries heading to mainland Europe to fight in the middle ages to an Irishman named French Tom who went to France to open wineries in the 1700s. To celebrate the latter, this whiskey is first aged in Ireland in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks before heading off to France to age at one of those wineries, Léoville Barton in Bordeaux, for an addition 12 to 24 months in wine casks.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Bold and complex aromas are rich with spice, dried fruit, and balanced oakiness. Buttery in texture and flavor, nectarine, vanilla bean, and softly cooked grains are well integrated. The smooth spirit finishes with a touch of long-lasting baking spice.”

Our thoughts:

A great Irish whiskey that any bourbon aficionado will truly adore.

Best Scotch/Highland Single Malt: Oban Aged 18 Years (98 points)

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Oban Distillery, Oban, UK (Diageo)
Average Price: $150

The Whisky:

We’re big fans of Oban around these parts. This is an expertly-crafted, small-batch operation in the heart of Oban Harbor. The whisky is aged on-site for 18 long years until it’s just right for the bottle.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Soothing aromas of sea salt, pencil lead, and crisp granola cookie are well-balanced. The satin texture weaves together flavors of wood-fired grain, candied nuts, golden raisins, and a slight hint of campfire. The layers of this easy-sipping whisky keep peeling back.”

Our thoughts:

Worth every penny in our estimation. Add a little water to get the full experience.

Best Bourbon: Stagg, Jr. (98 points)

ABV: 64.2%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY (Sazerac)
Average Price: $60

The Whiskey:

This quality expression from Buffalo Trace’s expansive line is a bottle that’s about to sky-rocket to stardom. The juice is aged for ten years and edges towards rye without overpowering itself.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Poundcake, grapefruit zest, chopped walnuts, red apple skin, and maple cream make for an alluring bouquet. The palate carries weight in terms of body and powerful spice, as well as ample fruit to add balance. Deep woodsy smoke and dark chocolate mark the finish.”

Our thoughts:

This was our pick as one of the best alternatives to extremely expensive bottles and we stand by that.

Best Scotch/Speyside Single Malt: Glenrothes Aged 18 Years (98 points)

ABV: 43%
Distillery: The Glenrothes Distillery, Rothes, UK
Average Price: $150

The Whisky:

This whisky leans heavily into the sherry cask process. The juice sits in first-fill sherry casks for 18 years and draws all its rich hues from the wood.

Tasting Notes (from the USC):

“Breakfast cereal, graham crackers, and butter baked fruit are refreshing aromas. Flavors of sea salt, caramel, coffee and cream are deep and continue to develop in the mouth. The dark toffee finish has a hint of smoke and leather.”

Our thoughts:

If you dig on the briny single malts over the peaty, this is the bottle for you. It’s pricey but worth it for a special occasion.

Best American/Rye: Thomas H. Handy Sazerac (99 points)

ABV: 63.45%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY (Sazerac)
Average Price: $450

The Whiskey:

This is one of the five nearly unattainable bottles from Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection. The juice was distilled in 2013 and aged in very specific areas of the rickhouses before being bottled with no fussing whatsoever.

Tasting Notes:

“This barrel proof and unfiltered rye whiskey is bold. Aromas lean toward the sweeter side with maple syrup, fresh apples, and oatmeal porridge. Echoing the aromas, the smooth flavors are strong, beginning sweet and evolving into robust grain and spices like cinnamon and mace.”

Our thoughts:

Is it worth the price tag? That’s between you and your checking account. Our advice, try it at a tasting first and go from there.

The Lakers and Nuggets faced off on Monday night in the final game of the evening and put on quite the show despite the Nuggets taking much of the second half to rest its weary starters.

The game was tight throughout and was tied at 88 going to the final quarter when Denver deployed a Monte Morris, P.J. Dozier, Keita Bates-Diop, Bol Bol, and Mason Plumlee lineup against the Lakers regular rotation for the entire 12 minutes of the final period. Those Nuggets reserves played incredibly well, particularly on offense, and gave the Lakers defense fits as they continue trying to find their pre-restart form on that end.

The good news for the Lakers is that, while it might’ve been more difficult than they would’ve liked, they pulled out a win and continue to see excellent play from Kyle Kuzma in the bubble. Kuzma had 25 points, six rebounds, and three assists on Monday on a red-hot 11-of-16 shooting (including 3-of-5 from three). None of those shots were bigger than his game-winning three with 0.4 seconds left and the game tied to give L.A. the win.

As for having Bol’s hand in his face, Kuzma dropped an all-time quote after the game.

For a Lakers team that expects to see LeBron James be more consistent offensively once the playoffs roll around and hopes Anthony Davis can be a dominant force regularly, finding that third scoring option will be important to their title chances. They need their two stars who have yet to shine as we know they can together in the same game in the bubble to do so, but they also will need someone to step up. Right now, it appears Kuzma has the confidence to do so and his efforts thus far in Orlando have been admirable. James finished with 29 points and 12 assists as he looks to be rounding into postseason form, and while Davis had a quieter second half, he still finished with 27 points on strong efficiency.

As for Denver, seeing their bench unit play this well given depth questions in the bubble with Will Barton and Gary Harris still out is incredibly encouraging. While none of those five figure to play that many minutes again come playoff time, this experience against a Lakers team that was very much trying down the stretch will be good for Dozier, Plumlee, and the rest who all impressed in extended minutes offensively.

We’ll see if gutting out this win can perk up the Lakers a bit, who have looked pretty flat in the bubble thus far, particularly since locking down the one-seed. Kuzma getting it going is a great sign though, because one has to believe the two superstars will be at their best when it counts the most.

Though he’s yet to become a household name, Jim-E Stack has worked with many big-name artists. Along with boasting a wide solo catalog, the musician has contributed to songs for the likes of HAIM, Future, Bon Iver, Dominic Fike, Perfume Genius, Rostam, and Charli XCX. Following his Empress Of collaboration “Note To Self,” Stack taps LA crooner Dijon for his latest number “Sweet Summer Sweat.”

Stack said the first time he heard Dijon’s freestyle, he was overcome with a distinct feeling of nostalgia over a small-town summer. Even though he grew up in San Francisco, which is by no means a small town, the musician held onto that emotion while placing the final touches on the song’s instrumentals. “Last summer I made a beat with some chopped-up guitar that felt like my version of a song on Sheryl Crow’s ‘Tuesday Night Music Club,’” Stack said. “When Dijon freestyled and landed on the words ‘Sweet Summer Sweat,’ I immediately had an unlived memory of young summer love in small-town America. From that moment on, finishing the song became solely about articulating that feeling.”

Listen to “Sweet Summer Sweat” above.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Though she’s always maintained her innocence, Carole Baskin, one of the breakout names from the Netflix documentary show Tiger King, has repeatedly come under scrutiny over the disappearance of her wealthy husband, Don Lewis. Granted, much of that has come from the show’s main star, jailed zookeeper Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, who has claimed that Baskin, his arch-nemesis, had something to do with it. Now Lewis’ family are trying to take charge: As per The Hollywood Reporter, they’re offering $100,000 in exchange for any information on his whereabouts.

The news came Monday in a press conference, in which Lewis’ family — including three of his daughters — announced that not only were they offering a generous reward for intel, but that they were also filing a lawsuit against Baskin, who was Lewis’ second wife, in an attempt to get her to speak about the matter on the record. Baskin released a statement saying wouldn’t comment on it.

Lewis went missing in 1997, a mere day before a scheduled trip to Costa Rica. No body was ever found and he was declared legally dead in 2002. Together Baskin and Lewis founded the animal sanctuary that later came to be called Big Cat Rescue Corp., located in Tampa, Florida.

On top of this latest development, Baskin also recently launched a potential feud with rappers Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, taking issue with the Ben Shapiro-enraging video for their saucy new song “WAP.”

(Via THR)

50 Cent and Rick Ross have had longstanding beef for over a decade, but it seems the two rappers are finally willing to put it all that behind them. 50 Cent was recently greenlit by Starz for the TV show Black Mafia Family, or B.M.F. for short, and he thinks Ross’ 2010 track “BMF” would be an apt addition. Ross is willing to clear the track but has one request first, and it involves chicken.

Along with a career in music, Ross has embarked on some entrepreneurial endeavors. Not only does the rapper partner with rosé wine brand Luc Belaire, but he also owns 25 storefronts of the franchise Wingstop. Ross brought up his partnerships in a conversation with Billboard, who had interviewed 50 just a few weeks prior. Ross discussed the likelihood of clearing “BMF” to be in 50’s B.M.F. show, saying he’d be willing to do it on one condition: 50 has to promote Wingstop and Luc Belaire to his 26 million Instagram followers. Only then will Ross be willing to take it into consideration:

“That’s most definitely a discussion I’mma have. But, obviously, he reaching out… I’mma profit off of him. That’s what it’s about with me and I told him that. He could go to Wingstop and take a picture when a 10-piece lemon pepper. And while you at it, tell him to take a picture with the black bottle [of Belaire] and hold it up. And if he do that and post that, I’mma really consider clearing the ‘BMF’ record for his show. […] Tell him to take a picture with the Belaire bottle and hold it up hight. When I see it, tell him for the first time I’m going to come to his page and I’mma actually like the pic.”

Watch a clip of the interview above.

Dating back to January, Jimmy Butler and T.J. Warren have quite a rivalry going. In fact, both players were given fines by the NBA for their actions earlier this year and, while the world has changed quite a bit since then, the match-up between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers on Monday evening drew a bit of extra attention for the player-versus-player rematch. After halftime, the Heat turned a close-fought battle into a rout, eventually outlasting the Pacers by a final score of 114-92.

Though Warren has been unbelievable in the bubble, he and the Pacers got off to a glacial start in this matchup. Miami built an early lead of 21-9 and the highlight of the early going was a connection between Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo.

Indiana opened the night by shooting 3-of-15 and committing five turnovers, scoring only nine points in the first ten minutes of action. However, it was Warren that helped to lead the Pacers out of the morass and, for the first half, the talented forward produced 12 points.

Butler was also productive, scoring ten points, but he relied on 8-of-8 from the line after shooting just 1-of-7 from the floor. While Miami got off to a strong start on the back of Indiana’s offense mishaps, the Pacers did rally, using a 7-0 run to take their first lead of the night near halftime. In fitting fashion for a game between teams with identical win-loss records for the season, the game was knotted at 48-48 after 24 minutes of play.

After the break, though, the Heat quickly took control and they never let go of the rope. Miami zoomed to a 13-4 run to open the third quarter, with quality work on both ends.

Much as they did in the first half, Indiana stumbled at the outset of the third quarter, scoring only nine points in eight minutes. Along the way, Warren picked up his fourth foul, forcing Nate McMillan to go to the bench, and the floodgates continued to open for Miami.

Eventually, the lead ballooned to 18 before the end of the third period, as Miami shot 64 percent from the floor and knocked down six three-pointers in the quarter. Defensively, the Heat held the Pacers to 33 percent shooting and 1-of-9 from long distance, with tenacity and effectiveness that visibly bothered Indiana.

While he was far from alone, Butler was masterful in the third quarter, scoring nine points, dishing out three assists and generally controlling the action on both ends.

Though Warren did have moments in the first half, this night belonged to Butler from a head-to-head standpoint. The All-Star wing finished the night with 19 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and four steals, overcoming a shaky shooting night to make a significant two-way impact.

From a team-wide perspective, the Heat took care of business in notable fashion, especially when taking into account that this could be a playoff preview. Miami and Indiana are projected to square off as the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds and, even before that matchup could begin, the two teams will take the floor against each other again on Friday. On this night, though, Miami’s defense forced Indiana into ugly offense throughout the night and, with the help of Butler and a balanced attack that netted seven players in double figures, the Heat made quite a statement.

The first thing is flight. Vince Carter was not a player who ran before he jumped, or walked before he ran. He was always, right away, in orbit. Cyclonic through the paint, his every rotation adamant as weather because he needed the velocity to propel up and over the gawking faces of his contemporaries, four decades worth. Once he’d cleared it, hit that sweet spot where gravity eased its grip, time slowed and he rollicked in the release. His dunks were complicated and gorgeous, even the slams that looked simple had the sort of hang time that required the alchemy of innate talent, conditioning, and a barometric sense of the game.

To be airborne was a comfort. He did his best thinking up there. When he landed, a game could instantly change course, like he’d glimpsed another outcome from that vantage point, another place for his team to go. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say some of most haunting moments of his career were made with ceiling as a decider, namely, where he saw its limits or where he was kept too long from communing with his inherent altitude. He was, for a while, called Air Canada, until the pet name grew too painful that an entire country would prefer you not bring it up and changed it, instead, to Wince Carter.

But he became others: Vinsanity, Half Man, Half Amazing, nicknames he flowed through like the years, a career so long, and charted in so many ways, it has become the kind of story that grows loose and familiar in its retellings because everyone can hold a small part of it, shape it as their own. Man made myth. With it wrapping in a surreal of a way as it started, the legend has only grown but we can finally trace it start to finish. The defining events become the fixed points to navigate his career by, the constellation of Vince Carter.

The Trade

Perhaps it’s best to start with the worst. Something like an exorcism, confronting the part of the story with the most demons, some still up and roaming around.

In 2004, even Carter’s halcyon days with the Raptors were haunted. The missed shot of 2001’s Game 7 against Allen Iverson’s Sixers hung as prominently in the collective psyche of Toronto fans as the college diploma Carter had gone to collect the morning of game day. A footnote that would have been celebrated, it may have even been touted now in an era rife with examples of it, as an early pioneering of player autonomy to come had the shot just fallen half an inch north.

Toronto’s front office was a mess. The franchise had gone through four coaches in his six years as their star, Lenny Wilkens the most formative for Carter in his rookie year, something of a ballast, and later, Butch Carter, who believed in him, only there for a season. In an interview with John Thompson that would stick another knife in his name, Carter recalled the internal jockeying as arduous, a permanent state of suspension where the team was constantly starting over from the foundations. Forced to dig up from bedrock with every new coach, Carter said he “never felt like we all took a stand together.”

There are plenty of angles to take with Carter’s departure from Toronto, many of which are still awfully sharp. But the glint in all of them are mournful refractions from Carter himself. What he wanted, what he said he wanted, was a team that took him seriously. As its star, someone who had lifted the franchise from league obscurity as much as maestro’d the rising fever pitch that basketball grew to in Toronto, lopsided as it was with the country’s only other franchise packing up and moving to Memphis in the shadow of Toronto’s insular success. In the infamous interview with Thompson, Carter said he only wanted the same courtesies as his teammates when it came to information and top-down communication. He could take it, he promised, just tell him if he should be doing something else, something different, or if, unthinkably, his time was up.

Retrospect affords a forgiving hue but in hindsight the facts lay the situation bare as it’s ever been.

Paired with the way we look at the league now, the freedom of its players, not just its stars, to center themselves in their career choices, Carter’s decision loses a lot of its scorn and softens. Whether it was a franchise uncomfortable with having a star, period, or a star of a different caliber — none of the gruffness of Kevin Garnett, the zen inaccessibility of Tim Duncan — earnest in his desire to be a contributor, to shape the future of a team on and off the floor, or not knowing how to treat one as a leader and part of the overall picture, the Raptors screwed it up. They could have had a prototype in Carter, an early, perhaps more collaborative LeBron James.

Was Carter at fault in bending to his body when it showed its first signs of duress? He was coming off the best basketball he’d ever known himself to play when his left knee began to founder, of course he panicked. He was only 24. It could have been his first recognition of what is understood among players to be a finite career closing in, that sense of invincibility shot, a reality check for how was he prepared to spend the rest of it. Carter had gained a reputation for being fair-weather because his games played tapered to the mid 70s in his later seasons with Toronto (43 in 2002-2003 immediately following off-season surgery) but when you look at load management now, a concept that’s become a colloquial shorthand, it feels cruel he was afforded no patience while expected to pay with his body.

When he admitted to not pushing himself those last years in Toronto, not playing at his full capacity and relying, as he told Thompson, on talent, it wasn’t really a dig. Playing as a franchise leader, upwards of 40 minutes a night, is hardly phoning it in. Could he have couched the sentiment in a little more regret? Sure. But who’s to say he felt any just then. He was being booed at home, the front office had revoked his mom’s parking spot at the arena, and there was no real plan for him.

It’s not that the Nets had anything more clairvoyant waiting, GM Ed Stanfanski admitted he’d only heard rumblings of problems, that nothing he did “was special,” he only called the Raptors and offered them Alonzo Mourning, Aaron Williams, Eric Williams, and a pair of first round picks. That the return of the trade — Mourning refused to report and was bought out of his contract and of the picks, which were supposed to herald GM Rob Babcock’s rebuild, one was traded away to the Knicks with Jalen Rose and the other yielded Joey Graham, who would leave the league by 2011— was placed as blame on Carter’s receding back signals only a front office that was so desperate to offload someone that it didn’t bother to litmus test the return.

For Carter, New Jersey wanted him, and that’s all he wanted.

The Dunk Contest

History doesn’t often give hints when it’s about to happen. There can be small tells, felt like tremors in the moment, or a collective sense of something catching if you’re close enough. Carter’s performance in the 2000 Dunk Contest was history arriving, it was also history scooting down between the players who sprawled, sleepover style, on the court to get a good place to watch from.

Even in rewatching it, no matter how often, there is a stab of adrenaline when Carter takes his first walk down to the basket and does a quick, fishing hook loop up court, tossing the ball out in front of him and picking up a jog, when the idea for his first dunk hits him. Later, Carter would admit to scrapping his original dunks for what he did that night. Partially the product of forced reflection as he sat crammed in a sedan, en route to Oakland from his hotel with four other people stuck in traffic on a drizzly afternoon, plus the feeling he got when he walked out onto the floor at Oracle, that this needed to be big. He hadn’t been able to pull off the 360 windmill while practicing in the weeks leading up to the contest, but out there under the lights, his body a live wire, he reached for it anyway.

“There was this unbelievable spike of adrenaline in my body and I didn’t have to worry about not getting enough height anymore. At the end of that dunk I did an extra bounce off the floor when I landed. I felt like I could’ve gone back up and thrown down another windmill.” Carter has recalled of that extra shove his brain gave his body.

What followed was a testament to winging it, in the purest sense of the word. Each of his next four acts came to him on the fly — one even in a bright flash of memory seconds before he took off sprinting, an ad in magazine he’d seen a week before — as if placed there by the hand of some divine force that loved dunks. The comparatively quiet explosion from behind the basket, bounding out from the baseline in another windmill that had him at height with the rim and only seemed subdued because the sonic waves of excitement from his first dunk were still bumping around the arena. The bounce pass he had to talk his cousin, Tracy McGrady, into giving him, a first attempt he could’ve plucked from where it hung but tried it again because he wanted it just so. And thank goodness he did because the softness he moved the ball between his left and right hands with, a quiet convening under his legs, the sailing ease of his body, moving like it’d caught a stray thermal, all set up the resulting slam to split the arena open.

He wasn’t even finished.

Carter circles back to the net. He said he was buying time, picking his spots, but it isn’t a stretch to say there was something devout about it. The basket being the altar the Dunk Contest is communed through and Carter, then and since, its most pious practitioner. He walks calmly up to mid-court as players watching from the floor move in giddy shoals down around the net. He veers out to the right and turns, holds the ball between his hands, rubs his right bicep then is gone. Four loping strides that lengthen like he’s running downhill. Under the net he takes a quick scissor step on his toes and tilts, imperceptibly, until he’s springing up toward the basket and has brought his outside arm in, hitched it over the rim at his elbow, swings.

When he lands it’s quiet for the first time all night. There’s a lurch, what’s happened hasn’t caught up with everyone who’s watching it. Mouths hang open and twenty thousand pairs of eyes pin to the replay, Carter walks away smiling, waiting. His arm was black and blue for days after, bruises as proof that the contest he’d just brought back from the brink after its two year hiatus was still worth it.

His last dunk, a two handed vault from the free throw line, seemed polite by comparison. It pretty much was. He’d run away with the contest by then but the choice now feels symbolic because Carter took flight. He was already a star in his own right but that night, he exploded. It marked the beginning of the biggest boom time the Raptors, an outpost franchise still proving its worth to the league, had ever had. Carter jerseys showed up on the road and the team became an embodiment of promise, new energy, but still maintained an outlier’s cool.

Looking back now it seems as close to a Greek tragedy as any that in four years Carter would claim he didn’t want to dunk anymore, would balk at being labelled a league Apollo of the practice, like the archer’s pose he adopted after the dunk that had Kenny Smith crowing his and the Dunk Contest’s new catchphrase — “It’s over! It’s over!” But that night, in those five feats, Carter took magic and ran with it, turned the contest to lore and pulled his team from history’s margins. His potential, at that shining point, was anything.

The Prime Journey

Carter couldn’t know that his abysmally undervalued trade to New Jersey was setting in motion a career that would largely be marked by how many moves he made. His pastoral five seasons with the Nets would prove to be the most stable of his career, largely free from the kind of injuries and limitations — even if some were self-imposed — that had him reevaluating his time in Toronto. Carter missed 11 games in four full seasons and change with New Jersey, and while dunks were still the splashiest part of his repertoire, he rounded out as a player, recording his highest career averages per game of 23.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists.

Carter and Jason Kidd were the first teammates in twenty years, since Jordan and Pippen, to post triple-doubles in the same game, and the two, alongside Richard Jefferson, would carry a large but not particularly flashy roster to the playoffs three seasons in a row. It was in the 2007-2008 season, when Kidd was traded, that Carter would first step into a solo leadership role, the kind that he’d seemed to covet with the Raptors but not taken hold of, team circumstance as much as his limited experience shaking him off.

Two years into a new four-year contract, and Carter was growing. He was a vital part of the Nets backcourt, showing the sort of new range as a defensive player that irks anyone who thought they had a player like him — all show, no grit — pegged. His abrupt trade to Orlando halfway through his new contract was more about the Nets clearing their books for a potential run at that summer’s free agents than it was Carter’s role as a team leader and dominant scorer, and Carter took it in stride.

Orlando was fresh – if a little woozy – from its title fight with the Lakers, and saw in Carter a chance to round out scoring. And Carter saw his clearest shot yet at championship contention.

Under Stan Van Gundy, Carter was with the Magic through two straight sweeps to start the 2010 Playoffs. Charlotte and Atlanta were the breezy preludes to a convincingly despicable Celtics team that would chase them through three straight losses, two fight-for-their-life wins, all to prime them for the Game 6 ending blow. It was (and would be) Carter’s only appearance in a Conference Finals, but there were complaints that he’d barely lifted a finger. With a Game 4 showing of three points and two rebounds in 30 minutes on the floor, then a Game 5 rally for eight points, Carter was called an expensive spectator, his $16 million contract not adding up. There were comparisons to his time in Toronto, stretches where he did not seem to want to try or wasn’t living up to the fleeting idea of potential.

But that season in Orlando marked his 14th year in the league, he was 34. It would’ve made sense if his game was slowing down.

The thing with Carter, even then, was his timelessness. He was still capable of explosive moments even if his scoring had gradually tapered. The downfall of his enduring and easy style, the style that made him destined for the kind of longevity he had, was that it generated criticisms that players five (and eventually 10, 15) years his junior were getting. It’s not that he gave up or wasn’t pressing himself, it’s that after a decade and change of play he was starting to piece together what he needed to do in order to have another one.

The Veteran

He didn’t even have time to get a sunburn in Phoenix. With the Suns he met Steve Nash on the veteran’s last orbit but both were moving in such different directions they were like spaceships, one blipping by the other. But it’s likely he gleaned something from Nash, especially as a beloved player come back for a victory lap, because Phoenix is where Carter began to shift into what he would largely become in his next ten seasons: a role player.

His transition was gradual — not in Phoenix, because after the NBA lockout he was waived by the Suns — but in Dallas, then Memphis, a skip to Sacramento and finally with Atlanta. With the Mavs his scoring took another dip, hanging steady around 12 points per game, and would drop a point or so with every consecutive year. But starting in Dallas, as if freed up from the pressure of the paint and all those years it became Carter’s center stage, he began to hang back. Moving easily around the outside and spending more time scoping, his 3-point game took on a new thump of life.

A Carter three, like most Carter moves, is punctuated at its exactly most outwardly effortless point. It’s always been lulling, how he plays, and probably where so much of his criticism came from. As he himself said back in Toronto, there were times where he relied on talent, wore it like skates. And wouldn’t you? If it were so easy to do the thing you loved most, why make it feel more like work than it was. Because it was, of course, most of the time. You don’t have a 22-season career in one of the most competitive, shortest job expectancy leagues without taking it, and yourself, seriously. But there are times when you know, in the muscle memory talent affords, that the larger force of innate ability will carry you and you coast, if only for the sheer joy of it.

All Carter’s most memorable plays have the slip and fluency of ease. The dunks, their power like he was only stretching, extending his body to where it naturally wanted to go. His early no-look passing, near caricature with how he’d huck it and before the ball had hit waiting hands Carter would turn to walk, smirking, away. His occasional snags, like he knew how to read a guy’s footwork, their breath, to time when the ball would be ripe for picking. His uptick in threes were no different. A flinging away, two-handed with his right hand lightly leading. Legs kicking forward, initially from force but later in his career like the flourish of a signature. The punctuation comes in the ease, in this case. The skip of his arms, the fadeaway form his body hangs on to even after making 2,290 of these. And the reactions – as with everything else he does – don’t hurt.

If Dallas, alongside Dirk Nowitzki, felt like a final free-for-all, then Memphis was where Carter turned to look at the game he knew he was beginning to leave to see where he could give back. Out of his own spotlight, he was free to create a larger, albeit quieter role. His intangibles, the things he had so deeply craved early on in his career whether from front office or his own locker room leader, were stacked.

The steadiness of experience, the precision of an expert eye that can catch anything coming at it, a well of understanding that went beyond IQ into explicit sensory recall of what it all felt like, a sense of humor, patience.

To his teammates in Memphis, Sacramento and Atlanta, some of whom had been born after Carter was drafted, he was a legend just up and walking around, eating whatever postgame meal had been provided by a host arena on the road, their own idol falling asleep on the bus.

He may be an ideal; there aren’t many who will follow along in his footsteps all the way to the end, but he was relatable. On the floor he was vocal, amping players up, stepping in to deflect or deflate when things got tense. He showed today’s vets his moves when they were rookies and he showed today’s rookies the same things. He could also be fallible, he was a teammate. Off the floor he was a mentor, a glue guy, the window into life after basketball for players navigating a career going full-tilt.

Using his own career as a blueprint, he got to be everything he wanted.

The Return

There was no guarantee it wasn’t going to end badly. Up until that point — Nov. 19, 2014 — his every return to Toronto was met with a coliseum chorus of boos, the entire pitch of the place crashing several octaves. A decade worth of jeers, freshest and seething when he’d make the short trip north from New Jersey but just as lasting whenever he returned with Orlando or Dallas. Entirely new generations of fans indoctrinated into the tradition adding fresh slights, novel ways of reminding him nobody had forgiven, let alone forgotten.

Carter had been interviewed that morning and expressed trepidation at the prospect of a tribute, how it would be received. But the Raptors were honoring anyone seminal that season for the 20th anniversary of the franchise.

Maybe because Toronto was fresh from their first trip into the postseason in years and a brutal defeat there, still recovering but more wide open, the way you are when your heart gets blown apart. And the framing of 20 years, a number capable of putting everything in the past given its tidy, rounded weight, but near enough still that seeing all the way back to the beginning is possible.

The lights went down during the first timeout called in the 1st quarter. There was a murmur in the crowd, a sense already of what this might be for. A video started, its audio preemptively cranked in case the expected response started early. As far as in-game tributes go, of course it had to be brief, but near the one-minute mark Carter says something that changed the pitch of the crowd. I hate that it ended that way.

When the lights came up, when Carter stepped out to the floor with a tentative hand up, there was a smattering of boos. But then everyone, section after section, got on their feet. I remember in my row someone turned and shot a look, just a look, at a lone detractor and they got up and started clapping. Then everyone was screaming, cheering. Then Carter was crying. Then everyone was crying. It lasted and lasted, he came back out onto the floor after he’d gone to the bench and everyone hugged him, the swell of the place got louder.

It was cathartic, a complete release. Years of blunted remorse and animosity that blurred perception, instantly gone. An arena and then a city relieved of a grudge it had already outgrown but wouldn’t take its teeth from. Freed from it, Carter grew lighter in the game. He got cheers from the crowd first with possessions, then with dunks, as if people were keen to relive how good it felt to forgive the guy who’d given the city its inaugural taste of pride, its first real stake in the game.

After everything, Carter called that night a highlight of his career.

The Retirement

There is no one else, not even Jordan, who was a contemporary and role model for four decades worth of NBA players. Who, in his last few seasons, seemed to collect a new record with every minute he played but stayed incessantly humble about it. All the accolades, the records smashed and set, were the footnotes of his career catching up with him as he continued to write the story’s conclusion. For all the griping he got early on, whether or not he was living up to outside expectations set largely by generational league precedents, all of which he outlasted, Carter’s aim was to excel, not just to endure. His was always a labor of love, tinged a little by the sense of eventuality, of “where else could I possibly be?” But he was still there to work.

Following his trade to New Jersey and the explosive John Thompson interview, Charles Barkley lamented that Carter, while a competitor, wasn’t bound to go far.

“He’s a nice guy,” Barkley said on Inside the NBA, “I’ve never met a great player who was a nice guy. He doesn’t have that edge.”

Carter’s edge turned out to be a staying power no one could have predicted. A fluidity that coursed through his game as much as how he carried himself off court, an internal fountain of youth. He played for eight teams with 244 teammates, saw two league lockouts, the first delayed the start of his rookie season until January and the second had him unceremoniously dumped at 34. He never made a ruthless run for a title but he never lost his heart, the inherent joy that playing the game gave him even after he quit spending so much time airborne, aloft, exalted. At that point, he communed with the dreams of the game’s next generation instead.

In the final seconds of what would be the last game before this season came to a forced halt, a chant went up in Atlanta. We want Vince. There were 19.5 seconds left on the clock in OT, the arena was half-empty partially because of it, and partially due to information coming down through the league about the COVID-19 pandemic, but everyone there was on their feet. Carter whispers something to R.J. Barrett as they wait around the key for Julius Randle to shoot his free throw. Barrett, serious until then, cracks a smile.

Carter scoops up the ball and inbounds it to Trae Young who takes it down court, Carter trailing. There’s 14.5 seconds on the clock when Young pulls up and turns, handing Carter the ball with both his hands.

A token, an offering.

Carter doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t mark the moment as anything other than what it is right then, the end of a ball game. He takes a step, stops way out at the top of the arc, and cranks it. His feet kick forward, his arms swing back, his signature three. It’s silent.

When it hits, when the crowd erupts and all his teammates arms go up in unison, there’s the slightest hesitation from Carter. He stares out at the ball as it bounces back to him, two kinds of gravity on their way at once. He returns to the present, bear-hugs Young, side-skips down the court out of habit as the Knicks dribble it out. When the buzzer goes everyone is already crowding him, the impending fear of what is happening in the world staved off at least right then. Carter moves through embrace after embrace and from the arena speakers, someone has started to play a far-off, booming echo out of the past.

Carter courses through this final moment to the awe he’d inspired twenty years earlier, experiencing how surreal, singular and strangely destined it is before it falls away from him and becomes fixed as legend.

“It’s over! It’s over!”

Monday night’s presidential press briefing was a more dramatic one than usual. First, there was the moment when Donald J. Trump was abruptly yanked away by Secret Service agents after reports of a shooting outside the White House. The incident, involving Secret Service shooting an armed man, was quickly put under control, and the president soon returned, rattling off a number of surprising things. He didn’t mispronounce Thailand this time, but he did suggest that the “1917 pandemic” helped end World War II, which began in 1939.

“The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people,” said the President of the United States. “Probably ended the second World War, all the soldiers were sick.”

Trump has regularly gotten the year wrong on the 1918 pandemic, but referring to the incorrect World War is a first. He, of course, meant World War I, which did end in November of 1918, half a year after that pandemic started. While some historians have argued that that outbreak affected the war, hitting Germany particularly hard, to claim that it was solely or even largely responsible for ending the global strife is, to put it lightly, up for debate.

The combination of the wrong pandemic year and the wrong war was quickly singled out.

The conservative-run Project Lincoln, which has been releasing scores of anti-Trump ads, made sure to get in a dig.

Some imagined other mis-remembered details floating in the president’s brain.

Others worried about his brain.

Richard Marx was horrified, too.

Alyssa Milano wanted to focus on the “1917 pandemic” bit.

Some imagined what perpetual Trump cheerleader Dinesh D’Souza, who repeatedly tried to defend the president’s “Thailand” gaffe, would say about this one.

And some pointed out that the people who dwell on Joe Biden’s screw-ups never say anything about the president’s mistakes.

Howard Stern has some advice for the embattled Ellen DeGeneres: Make a full heel turn and embrace the recent reports of workplace difficulties that have tarnished her nice celebrity reputation.

Page Six reported Stern’s advice, which was blunt:

“I’d go on the air and be a son of a bitch,” he said Monday on SiriusXM’s “Howard Stern Show.” “People would come on and [I would] go, ‘F–k you.’ Just be a p—k.”

Stern continued, “So you think I’m a p—k? I’m going to show you exactly. … I’m known on the air as a p—k, but off the air, I’m known as a great guy, you know, for the most part.”

Stern isn’t being very serious here, of course, and according to Page Six he used the segment as an opportunity to crack jokes about his own show and workplace abuse. The accusations on the set of Ellen are serious, including reports of sexually inappropriate behavior. But fans have certainly seen some not-so nice moments from Ellen in recent years, such as her fairly infamous interview with Dakota Johnson, in which things got tense in a hurry.

That interview helped lead to a more intense scrutiny of DeGeneres, unearthing stories from both celebrities and employees working on the show about some not-so-nice treatment on set — tales that have come to dominate the show’s storyline in recent months. It’s extremely unlikely DeGeneres will actually follow Stern’s advice, but at least he’s trying to help, I suppose.

There is still no release date for Peacock’s Saved by the Bell reboot, but teasers continue to be dropped, ads that suggest this version will be a bit more tongue-in-cheek than the original. Indeed, the latest ad features a wink-wink call-back to one of the show’s most iconic/notorious/mocked moments: the episode where Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Zack Morris gets Elizabeth Berkley’s Jessie Spano hooked on caffeine pills.

Jessie’s climactic breakdown, involving her own twist on the Pointer Sisters’ hit “I’m So Excited,” has fueled untold memes and yuks over the years. Heck, it might even be the show’s most remembered moment. The teaser makes sure to slip in a call back. Berkley is back as Jessie, now a teacher at Bayside High School and as soon as she hears some of her students mentioning caffeine pills — while “I’m So Excited” blares on the soundtrack — she swoops in, scoops up the bottle, and proceeds to tell her young charges to not be her when she was their age.

“At first, they’re so exciting,” Berkley’s Jessie explains to a deeply confused student. “And then it gets even more exciting. But after that it gets so scary. And after that you’ve ruined your girl group shot and recording contract.”

Again, the new Saved by the Bell — which also exhumes Mario Lopez’s Al.C. Slater, and will feature appearances from other alumni — currently has no release date.

(Via EW)