Month: August 2020

The Philadelphia 76ers lost Ben Simmons earlier this week, as the All-Star guard/forward left the team’s game against the Washington Wizards with what was eventually described as a subluxation of the patella tendon in his left knee. On Saturday, Shams Charania of The Athletic and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Simmons will undergo a procedure on his knee, with Wojnarowski mentioning that the goal is to remove a “loose body.”

Wojnarowski went on to say that Simmons needs to leave the bubble in order to undergo this procedure, something that Charania confirmed. He’s previously been ruled as out indefinitely, although that was before word hit the Twitterverse about needing surgery, and Wojnarowski says that a timetable will be announced soon.

The Sixers will, obviously, hope that Simmons is able to return from injury as soon as possible, although needing to go under the knife seems like the sort of thing that will quash those hopes. Wojnarowski went on to report that Simmons returning might be dependent on Philly’s ability to make a run this postseason.

Philadelphia played its first game in the bubble without Simmons on Friday evening, picking up a 108-101 win over the Orlando Magic. Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, and Al Horford — which will need to be the team’s big three if the Sixers are to go on any sort of a run — combined for 67 points and 37 rebounds in the victory.

Last week Hulu cancelled one of their reboot of High Fidelity, which reimagined the Nick Hornby book — and its beloved John Cusack movie, from the year 2000 — with a female woman of color protagonist. It was a surprise, given how much press the show received, and given the current focus on gender and BIPOC issues. In fact, one critic of the move was star, Zoe Kravitz.

Soon after news of the cancellation broke, Kravitz took to Instagram with a simple tribute to her High Fidelity family, thanking everyone for “all the love and heart you put into this show.” The post received many well-wishes, including from fellow actress Tessa Thompson, who wrote, “I will miss you alllllllllllll so much.” Kravitz had a pointed reply: “it’s cool. at least hulu has a ton of other shows starring women of color we can watch. oh wait.”

Kravitz wasn’t wrong. Of the streamer’s many original shows, only one, the Kerry Washington-co-starring Little Fires Everywhere, prominently features a woman of color. As per Entertainment Weekly, the page dedicated to “Black Stories” features few Hulu originals.

The Kravtiz-starring High Fidelity was a loose take on the Hornby novel, first published in 1995 and concerning a thirtysomething record store owner having a kind of early mid-life crisis after a devastating break-up. The movie version, with Cusack, relocated it to Chicago, while the Kravitz iteration moved it to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, and swapped the genders of a number of characters. You can watch all 10 episodes on Hulu.

(Via EW)

The NBA announced the finalists for the six awards it will hand out based on everything up to the pause of the 2019-20 season. Each award has three finalists on the ballot, and while there is no set date for the awards to be handed out due to the lack of an NBA Awards show this year, the league said in a release that “TNT will announce the award winners during its coverage of the season restart.”

Here’s how the award finalists break down:

Most Valuable Player: Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, LeBron James
Rookie of the Year: Ja Morant, Kendrick Nunn, Zion Williamson
Most Improved Player: Bam Adebayo, Luka Doncic, Brandon Ingram
Defensive Player of the Year: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert
Sixth Man: Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Schröder, Lou Williams
Coach of the Year: Mike Budenholzer, Billy Donovan, Nick Nurse

Some of these seem pretty easy to sort out. Antetokounmpo is the overwhelming favorite to win MVP for the second year in a row. While Williamson was sensational in the minutes he played, Morant was brilliant in his own right and played far more. Sixth Man seems like a safe bet to stay in Los Angeles, but go from Williams’ hands to Harrell’s. Regardless, this is a loaded field of deserving finalists, and we’ll see in the coming weeks who comes out on top in all of these races.

While talk shows and even SNL have adjusted to the pandemic, almost all narrative programs have had to go completely on hiatus, pausing until people can again be closer than six feet apart. (There are, of course, exceptions.) And while the news is, well, not good, some people are more optimistic than others. For instance, the minds behind Succession, HBO’s hit about a particularly evil rich family, are mostly confident that they’ll be filming the much-anticipated third season by year’s end. Maybe.

This comes from Variety, who reveal that showrunner and creator Jesse Armstrong has said that Team Succession is “trying to think about starting shooting in New York before Christmas.” Mind you, none of this is concrete, because there is no way of telling when this thing will end. Indeed, Armstrong says these plans are, right now, “just conversations,” and he admits that everything right now is “tough.” Boy, he said it.

Still, a pre-holidays shoot is, according to Armstrong, “the plan at the moment,” so if everything works out, you may not have to wait forever to see how Brian Cox’s Logan Roy reacts to what his son, Jeremy Strong’s Kendall, did to him in the Season 2 finale. In the meantime, Armstrong says the writer’s room (or whatever the Zoom version of that is called) has had plenty of time to hone the script, though he admits he’s made “no more progress than if I’d had six weeks instead of the six months that we’ve had.” Anyway, fingers crossed!

(Via Variety)

After appearing achieving mainstream success with “Ye,” off his 2018 album Outside, Burna Boy reached for the stars. His fourth album, African Giant, earning him his first Grammy nomination, and leading to performances on late-night TV and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Now he’s unveiling details about his next big step, namely his fifth album, Twice as Tall.

Burna Boy took to his social media accounts to reveal the album’s release date and tracklist. The project, which arrives August 13, is executive produced by himself, Diddy, and Bosede Ogulu, and it marks the first time Diddy has served as executive producer since Nipsey Hussle’s 2018 album Victory Lap. Loaded with 15 songs, the album will feature the likes of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Stormzy, Youssou N’Dour, Sauti Sol, and Naughty By Nature, and it taps Mike Dean, Timbaland, LeriQ, Telz, and more for production.

Check out the album announcement above and scroll down to view the album’s tracklist.

1. “Level Up (Twice As Tall)” Feat. Youssou N’Dour
2. “Alarm Clock”
3. “Way Too Big”
4. “Bebo”
5. “Wonderful”
6. “Onyeka (Baby)”
7. “Naughty By Nature” Feat. Naughty By Nature
8. “Comma”
9. “No Fit Vex”
10. “23”
11. “Time Flies” feat. Sauti Sol
12. “Monsters You Made” Feat. Chris Martin
13. “Wetin Dey Sup”
14. “Real Life” Feat. Stormzy
15. “Bank On It”

Twice As Tall is out 08/13 via Atlantic.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music.

Perhaps you sometimes forget Ben Affleck is an Oscar-winning director. Even after starring in and helming Argo, Best Picture winner of 2012 — to say nothing of sharing a trophy with Matt Damon for writing Good Will Hunting — he’s still predominantly thought of as an actor and tabloid fixture. In case you need reminding that he’s also a serious auteur, here comes news that, mere months after receiving raves for his performance in The Way Back, he’s ready to direct a movie about the making of another movie, namely Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.

As per Deadline, Affleck, film director, is looking to adapt The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, Sam Wasson’s account of the making of the 1974 classic, starring Jack Nicholson as a private investigator who gets embroiled in a plot involving Los Angeles’ aqueducts. The book, by Sam Wasson, in part argues that Chinatown represents the last gasp of a pre-blockbuster Hollywood, before corporations started swallowing up major film studios and created the homogenous system we have today.

Affleck will also write the script, and will have the unenviable task of trying to find someone, anyone who could play Chinatown actors Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston, to say nothing of dashing super-producer Robert Evans. He’ll also have to find someone to play Polanski, and in an age when that director’s past actions have come back into heavy public scrutiny. Affleck the Director has a couple other projects on the pipeline, but perhaps this one will get promoted to the front. If so it will be his first directorial work since his 2016 crime epic Live by Night, which was not received as lovingly as were Argo and his feature debut, Gone Baby Gone.

(Via Deadline)

Three and a half years after his third album, The Weeknd returned in March with his fourth effort, After Hours. If the Canadian singer had it his way, he would have embarked on a massive North American and European tour starting this summer, but unfortunately the pandemic happened. However, nearly five months after After Hours‘ release, The Weeknd got a chance to perform songs from it thanks to Tik Tok.

Promoted as the “first-ever in-app cross reality experience,” The Weeknd jumped into the virtual world to perform for fans in a concert he dubbed The Weeknd Experience. It only lasted 15 minutes, but in that time the singer tapped into songs not only off After Hours but also tracks like “Pray For Me,” his collaboration with Kendrick Lamar off of the Black Panther soundtrack. To top it all off, The Weeknd also previewed a new, untitled song for fans. The track sounds like it may have been an After Hours leftover, as its production fit the album’s overall sound.

The new track also arrives just a day after The Weeknd released a new collaboration with the late rapper Juice WRLD, called “Smile.”

You can listen to the unreleased track in the tweet above.

In what was being heavily-billed as a potential Eastern Conference second-round preview, the Raptors and Celtics squared off in Orlando on Friday night, each eager to send a message and assert their dominance, but in the end, it was Boston who did precisely that with a 122-100 blowout win over Toronto.

Jaylen Brown had the hot hand for Boston, leading seven players in double-digit scoring with 20 points on 7-of-14 shooting, including 4-of-8 from three. Jayson Tatum added 18 points, seven rebounds, and four assists, while Daniel Theis logged a big double with 11 points and 11 boards and knocked down two of his four three-point attempts.

Toronto was unbeaten going into their tilt against the Celtics, having firmly re-established their status as the reigning champs through the first week of action in the bubble and already secured the No. 2 seed, as they held a 4.5 lead over Boston in the East standings.

But the Celtics reminded them that the road through the East won’t be a cakewalk as they were able to badger the Raptors into a horrific shooting night. Toronto went 10-of-38 from three-point range overall for the game, which started with a brutal 1-10 in the opening quarter. Boston didn’t fare much better early on, starting the game 3-of-10 from the field.

The Celtics eventually turned on the jets and took a 31-16 lead early in the second quarter, but it was Kyle Lowry (11 points) and and Fred VanVleet (13 points) who finally showed some signs of life, leading a 7-0 run to briefly cut the lead to single digits.

The first half didn’t offer many Raptors highlights, but it did give us this beautiful pass from Marc Gasol to a cutting VanVleet for the layup.

More credit needs to be given to Gasol for the pass. Wasn’t quite a one-timer but he knew before VanVleet did pic.twitter.com/5yJU9GPd7F

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) August 8, 2020

Theis led the way for the Celtics in the first half, scoring all of his 11 points before halftime and knocking down two of his four three-point attempts.

.@dtheis10 is doing it all tonight pic.twitter.com/LvhCCspbMS

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) August 8, 2020

Overall, the Raptors shot just 31 percent in the first half, including 3-of-18 from behind the arc. But Toronto came out with a lot more energy to start the third quarter and was able to briefly cut the lead to 10 behind a 6-0 run, capped off by a nice steal by VanVleet on Walker.

Fred VanVleet ripped Kemba pic.twitter.com/YMeg0QBYyr

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 8, 2020

But that turned out to be short-lived. Things got ugly quick after halftime, behind what ended up being a 36-12 run in the third quarter for the Celtics to push the lead to 91-57 going into the final frame, thanks to some hot play from Kemba Walker (17 points, four assists) and Tatum.

even through contact, @KembaWalker‘s gonna get his pic.twitter.com/Xz4TC2cOIE

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) August 8, 2020

They did it in part by going 7-of-11 from long-range in the quarter, with everybody getting in on the action from distance.

AUTOMATICpic.twitter.com/mWiCrk6ZKD

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) August 8, 2020

Toronto waived the white flag after that and took their first loss of the restart, with Boston moving to 3-2 in Orlando. The loss makes the Phoenix Suns the last undefeated team in the bubble.

Look, it’s one week of official games in the bubble and things are getting a tiny bit slow. It doesn’t mean things aren’t going to pick back up again, but so far guys have cooled it on going down waterslides at 3 p.m. because they are probably practicing instead. It’s one of the pitfalls of this industry, the chronicling downtime of professional athletes trapped in an experimental bubble industry, but it won’t alter in any way the frequency or quality of my work. You’ve got my word on that.

Otherwise, the biggest developments this week were night swims and general submersion after dark, a recurring appearance of one very bold duck, and shoes with fake pieces of fried chicken on them. Let’s see!

Victor Oladipo

Let’s start with a snack. Victor Oladipo sat down at one of the many restaurants housed in the Grand Floridian alongside teammate, Jeremy Lamb, and very quickly became transfixed and mildly obsessed with the apple creature creation set down in front of Lamb. Which, fair. Is this on the menu? Is it off menu, like a secret specialty? Did someone send this out just for them, or does every table get one? Is there just one artist back in the kitchen whose job it is to create creatures out of fruit, because if so, I can tell you right now this mystery master with a paring knife might be better suited for a gig with a subsidiary of Disney, The Jim Henson Company.

Rating: Who ate the head with its innocent, trusting eyes first?

Al Horford

It’s nice to see Horford spending his down time really MILKING the endorsements. No, honestly, chocolate milk is a wonderful, quenching drink, best served in a chalice balanced in one hand by Al Horford which he works a basketball in the other. But it’s also fine right from the carton.

Rating: This is not a paid promotion but Milk, if you would like it to be, my hands are just as hot as Horford’s only with clankin’ keys instead of threes.

Bradley Beal

It’s been nice to see the hobbies guys are getting into as their downtime dwindles, or else falls at really strange times where going out to sit by the pool at midnight (though that is coming up a little later) might not be the best choice. Beal has a drawing tablet and he has been sketching his heart out. Most notably, this vaguely menacing Mickey.

Rating: Do Scott Brooks next.

Donovan Mitchell

Ice baths to athletes are a lot like the call of the wild, or is it the call of nature? Anyway when they call, you need to answer. Time, place, outdoor conditions all may be unideal, but guys have to bravely ford their icy waters, much like early pioneers. Mitchell had to sit in one this week in the pouring rain as the tail end of Hurricane Isaias skimmed by Orlando. I wonder if it would be less painful, to have tropical rain hitting you as your lower half slowly froze? Or would it put your senses on an even higher alert?

Rating: I hope someone was handing him dry towels, at least.

Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum, Jusuf Nurkic

The 24/7 ice baths continue with a solid chunk of the Blazers sitting in them after midnight. This felt a lot like a summer camp escapade because they chronicles their journey from arena, via golf carts, over to where the baths were being set up, and it was all filmed by Nurkic in black and white which sort of made it seem like a night vision camera. That’s why Damian Lillard looks like a Dracula. That’s the only reason!

Rating: They had fun.

P.J. Tucker

Tucker continued to maintain an immaculate sense of self in the bubble this week, operating truly at his own pace, with his own preferences. The preferences in this case being extremely expensive, very old vintage wines. We know some players brought portable hyperbaric chambers into the bubble for their rooms, what we don’t know is if they have a wine cellar equivalent setting.

Rating: P.J.’s wine plug is putting in more work than James Harden in keeping Rockets basketball entirely efficient and completely joyless.

Malcolm Miller

Somebody’s made a good friend in room service.

Rating: Watch for “Famous Amos” to be the next track Dame drops from the bubble.

Jaren Jackson Jr.

I guess I take back completely what I said earlier about players’ poolside habits needing to change or not being that convenient. A good motto to live by is the one on display here by Jackson: When you want to go to the pool, go to the pool. Pool closure hours are another tool by a capitalistic society trying to keep us ignorant of the pleasures of lying beside one after dark.

Rating: Can you “close” water? Can you tell the ocean to cool it? Pool anarchy now.

Hassan Whiteside

Whiteside has traveled a lot of new roads of personal growth and discovery in the bubble. First, the joy of Rick Springfield, and now, a new and potentially disastrous relationship.

Rating: Summer loves weren’t meant to last forever.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Shai took his braids out this week.

Rating: He got them redone in time for his next game but for a little while Afro Shai was out there, just living.

Chris Boucher

The good news for fans of this column and the bad news for the storage capacity of my phone is that I finally learned how to screen record, and here is the inaugural treasure I present to you. Boucher, like many, probably all, is getting a little bored in the bubble. He remedied this by slapping on a spooky eyeball filter and juxtaposing that with one of the most soothing songs of all time. The results? Mesmerizing.

Rating: You’re gonna watch this 15 times.

Josh Richardson

Not sure if this nickname will stick on court but godspeed to Richardson who, hopefully, got something else to stick off it.

Rating: Lotion, I mean lotion. For his legs.

Josh Okogie

While NBA Wine Guys is a club that meets regularly, it is also a state of mind untethered by schedule. Here, Okogie put that ethos on display while dipping his legs in the heavenly and heavily chlorinated hotel pool waters with a nice nightcap of vino, a Cabernet to be precise.

Rating: Cheers to you, Josh, I’m sure P.J. will share his $500 bottle of Cab Sauv with you.

Troy Daniels

Daniels received one of the most simultaneously thoughtful and disgusting gifts of all time this week, Crocs covered in KFC. The all over print monstrosities even have little fake pieces of fried chicken affixed to their toes and came in a plexiglass case with gold inlay. No sightings yet of him wearing them around the grounds which is probably for the best in case a real croc laid its googly eyes on them.

Rating: This is what people mean when they say someone couldn’t buy a bucket.

BONUS: The Grand Floridian Mallard Duck

This duck has been popping up in a lot of places, and Luka Doncic has grown pretty fond of it, so I decided to dig a little deeper to get the facts. It turns out the duck in question, a female mallard, has only been popping up at the Grand Floridian, where both Luka Doncic and Malcolm Brogdon are staying. Is “Roso,” what Doncic calls the friendly mallard here, Slovenian slang for duck? You’ll be happy to know that by watching the Slovenian intro to the hit Disney show, Ducktales, I’ve deduced it isn’t. Anyway the most conclusive findings are that this is a pretty cute and fearless duck and I’m glad the Nuggets aren’t staying at her hotel so she won’t see Troy Daniels’ chicken sandals and get scared.

The Brooklyn Nets have been one of the more pleasant surprises of the NBA restart in Orlando. Despite a severely-depleted roster, they’ve won three out of their first five games, including a big upset victory over the No. 1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks earlier this week.

On Friday, they clinched a playoff spot with a 119-106 win over the Sacramento Kings, thus securing the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference standings and avoiding a potentially nail-biting play-in scenario with either the Magic or the Wizards for the last remaining playoff spot.

In the process, they helped earn Kevin Durant a hefty bonus that was built into his contract before last season, a reported $1 million incentive or making the postseason.

Kevin Durant has earned a $1M bonus with Brooklyn now clinching a playoff spot. The bonus before the season was considered likely and will not impact his $40.1M cap hit for 2020-21. https://t.co/lwhsuuIgFR

— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) August 7, 2020

Kevin Durant, who is still recovering from a torn Achilles tendon he suffered during last season’s Finals, is receiving the bonus despite not playing for Brooklyn at all this season or participating in the restart in Orlando. He is, however, expected to suit up for the Nets next season, although there is no clear timetable on when he — or the next NBA season — returns.