Month: December 2020

Death To 2020 (Netflix special) — Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has had it with 2020, too, which is saying a lot, given that he’s used to telling the most unsettling tales on the streaming waves. In this darkly comedic special, familiar faces (including Samuel L. Jackson, Leslie Jones, Hugh Grant, Kumail Nanjiani, Tracey Ullman, Lisa Kudrow, Cristin Milioti, and more) come together documentary-style while narrating real-life archival footage as renowned (yet fictitious) characters. It’s the year-end meltdown that you didn’t know that you needed.

I Used to Go Here (HBO Max) — Gillian Jacobs and Jemaine Clement star in this Andy Samberg-produced movie about a 30-something novelist (Kate Conklin) who may be a one-hit wonder. Following a traumatic breakup, she ends up heading back to her alma mater, where she finds herself entrenched in all kinds of college-age drama after an old professor invites her for a homecoming.

Bridgerton — (Netflix series) Shondaland brings us a series that I’m predicting will appeal to the Emily In Paris crowd but in a far less problematic way. Essentially, the show follows the debut of a daughter from a powerful family, who must navigate high society with the help of the rebellious Duke of Hastings, as they hatch a plan to reach their mutual goals. The romantic aspect of this series might be predictable, but the lessons learned and the lightly nibbling social commentary should strike a chord out there on Twitter.

Soul — (Pixar film on Disney+) Yep, this movie was scheduled for theaters, too, and you know the drill by now, but you’ve probably never seen anything like this Pixar installment. Jamie Foxx voices a jazz-obssesed music school music teacher in this existential and cosmic movie. His character dies, turns into a fuzzy blob, and then ends up in a place called The Great Before. There, he learns about the inception of souls and personalities before they head up to Earth. He ends up answering profound life questions for himself while exploring what makes life worth living.

Wonder Woman 1984 — (Warner Bros. film on HBO Max) Years ago, no one would have imagined the newest Wonder Woman movie heading straight to streaming (at the same time as some U.S. theaters), but here we are. And the end result ain’t dark and gritty but, instead, a lot like dessert. Gal Gadot’s Diana is done with World War I, and now she’s soaring through a mall food court and working in a museum. Watch out for that Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) and Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), and yes, Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor is somehow back for more after presumably biting the dust.

The Midnight Sky (Netflix flm) — George Clooney’s got a good-enough Netflix movie, y’all. He’s also got a David Letterman beard while playing a cancer-afflicted, lonely scientist in the Arctic who’s also struggling to survive on post-apocalyptic Earth while attempting to help save some astronauts. The screenplay hails from The Revenant‘s Mark L. Smith, so The Revenant + Gravity? That sounds epic, Oscar-y, and like a different kind of late-December movie than we’re used to from Netflix (Bright, Bird Box, 6 Underground). Let’s hope we don’t see any angry (polar) bears entering the equation.

Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion wasn’t a monster hit when it hit theaters nine years ago. It did alright, though! But this year it finally found the huge audience it deserves. Why? Because it’s about a pandemic that comes awfully close to destroying society. Of course, nearly a year into our own pandemic, we now know that things would play out a little differently. Perhaps that’s why the Oscar-winning filmmaker is hard at work on what he calls a “philosophical sequel” to his 2011 disaster drama.

Soderbergh broke the news on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, but he didn’t offer any real details beyond saying they’d be similar but different. For one thing, they’ll have the same screenwriter, Scott Z. Burns, who’s worked with the filmmaker on a number of projects, including The Informant! and Side Effects. “”Scott and I had been talking about, ‘So, what’s the next iteration of a Contagion-type story?’” he said, adding that it will look at the issue from “a different context.”

Does that mean it will be a different pandemic, perhaps one that occurs when the president is…well, you know, not all there, to put it mildly? Who knows! But the way he describes is people will “kind of look at the two of them as kind of paired but very different hair colors.”

Presumably that means few, if any, of Contagion’s all-star cast will return, among them Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, and — the one whose sudden death starts it all — Gwyneth Paltrow.

That film, whose own pandemic begins with a bat being displaced by rainforest-destroying developers, concluded with 2.5 million dead in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide. But it also saw Americans largely working together to combat a highly contagious virus, even taking the vaccine en masse. Amazingly, the far right conspiracy theorists, led by Jude Law’s Andrew Breitbart-esque web journalist, never quite take over. Who knew, in 2011, that Contagion would one day become escapist fare?

(Via EW)

A week after learning she was pregnant with twins, TikTok user @theblondebunny1 and her fiancé, got the stunning news she was pregnant again. And, no it wasn’t because the doctor missed a kid when they did the first count.

She was impregnated again ten days after the first embryos took hold. How in the world did that happen?

This pregnancy is known as superfetation and according to Healthline, it’s so rare that there are only a few cases noted in medical literature.

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“Superfetation is when a second, new pregnancy occurs during an initial pregnancy,” an article published by Healthline says. “Another ovum (egg) is fertilized by sperm and implanted in the womb days or weeks later than the first one.”

This rarely ever happens because it requires three unlikely events to occur.

First, the mother must ovulate while pregnant, which is unlikely because after pregnancy occurs, hormones are released to prevent further ovulation. Second, the ovum must then be fertilized, another rarity because after a woman is impregnated, the cervix blocks the passage of sperm.

Finally, the second fertilized egg must implant in the womb, another extraordinary occurrence, because implantation requires the release of certain hormones that wouldn’t be released if a woman were already pregnant.

“Normally your body is supposed to switch up your hormones and stop you from ovulating again once you’re already pregnant. In my circumstance it did not,” the mother-to-be-told her followers on TikTok.

The couple learned that it was a second pregnancy instead of triplets because the third baby was younger. “The first two babies are 10 and 11 days older than our third baby, so that’s how we knew straight away it was a second pregnancy,’ she explained.

However, the doctor had to confirm that it wasn’t an undeveloped third baby.

“To confirm it was superfetation and not just twin absorption or a malnourished baby, the doctors have been doing ultrasounds every two weeks,” the expectant mom said. “And, sure enough, it’s been hitting every single milestone, growing at a healthy rate, just 10 to 11 days behind the first two babies we have.”

The mother is 17 weeks pregnant and wants to carry the pregnancies to the 28-week mark, but hopes she can hold on longer.

The historic pregnancy inspired the mother-to-be to create a series of TikTok videos to share her journey and ask for advice from her followers.

The couple plans to raise the three children as triplets and when the time is right, share the beautiful surprise with them.

“When we raise them, we’re going to raise them all as triplets, love them equally, but one day we will tell them the story,” she added. “I want them to know. It’s such a special, unique circumstance.”

The couple is over the moon about the upcoming delivery, but the mother has a warning for any pregnant women who follow her. “So when your man doesn’t want to use protection because you’re already pregnant — I would be cautious,” she said.

James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad movie stars everyone from Margot Robbie (as Harley Quinn, of course) to Idris Elba (as Bloodsport) to Pete Davidson (as Blackguard) to John Cena (as Peacemaker). To that end, the latter character will receive a spinoff HBO Max series, which Gunn decided to write because he was bored during the pandemic. The details of the series remain murky as far as the timeline goes, since Gunn doesn’t want to spoil any of the movie, although we can expect some origin explorations but not necessarily a prequel or straight-up origin story.

Gunn also made sure to shut down a strange rumor, which was surfaced on Twitter by an outlet that claimed Peacemaker would receive a TV-friendly cut for the CW. In response, the Guardians of the Galaxy helmer had a chuckle and more: “Lol. No. If we edited it for broadcast TV it would be forty seconds long.” In other words, Peacemaker will be a profane and extremely violent affair.

In previous news, Gunn has warned fans that multiple Suicide Squad members could die in his reimagining of the franchise (following David Ayer’s 2016 flick). Everyone’s already forgotten about poor Slipknot biting it in the first film, so I do wonder how big Gunn will go, and if he will dare to get rid of a larger, more popular character. Harley’s obviously going nowhere, but I will say that I’d be sad if Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag bit the dust. Maybe Gunn can bring back Slipknot only to kill him again? Stranger things have happened, and stranger things will probably also happen in Gunn’s movie.

If you were of the opinion that Creed II was fine if a bit of a step down from its predecessor, then this should fill you with good vibes: One of its stars, Tessa Thompson, told MTV that the threequel will be directed by another one of its stars, Michael B. Jordan. Previously the big news had been a mere rumor, but Thompson confirmed that the cat was officially out of the bag.

The actress was discussing her new period romance, Sylvie’s Love, alongside co-star Nnamdi Asomugha when the conversation perhaps inevitably veered into last month’s news, namely that Jordan had been declared People’s 2020 Sexiest Man Alive. There was some joshing. (“I’m going to give him a lot of crap about it in person,” she said. “I need to start developing, like, pranks around that.”)

Thompson then confirmed the news. “He is directing the next Creed,” she said. “It’s going to be ammo, I think, for me when he is engaging with me as a director. I’m just going to tell him to dial down the sexiness.”

The film is set to start shooting next year, though it’s unclear if Sylvester Stallone will return as Rocky Balboa, the Philly palooka-turned-pugilist who started the whole franchise. Five years ago the Rocky series mutated, passing the baton to Jordan’s Adonis, the son of Carl Weather’s late Apollo Creed.

As far as resuscitating old IP, the first Creed was one of the most thoughtful and personalized, with filmmaker Ryan Coogler honoring the source while making it his own. Creed II continued the story, sans Coogler, and it ended on a note of semi-finality for Rocky himself, who was allowed to gracefully bow out rather than die out. But it’s clear from this news that whatever happens, the series will be in good hands.

(Via MTV and EW)

Ever since the advent of rap’s global popularity in the 1980s, new jack rappers have gained notoriety and stirred controversy by taking potshots at hip-hop’s sacred cows. A 17-year-old LL Cool J found himself on the first end of the equation when he called Kool Moe Dee “old school” in 1987, then on the other side ten years later as he duked it out with a rising star named Canibus in 1997. It’s the circle of life, it moves us all — but that hasn’t stopped younger rappers from getting a rise out of older fans with their inflammatory remarks.

29-year-old Young Thug is finding that out after appearing on the Million Dollaz Worth Of Game podcast. After taking so much flak for name-checking Andre 3000 recently and Jay-Z today, it seems his reticence to give interviews is has been justified many times over. While discussing his ideal challenger for a Verzuz matchup, his words were poorly received — after the quote was taken out of context, cut down, and mangled by users on Twitter, of course — when he seemingly suggested that Jay-Z wouldn’t have enough hits to go 30 rounds with him. Of course, in the actual quote, Thugger acknowledged he name-checked a bad example while making a larger point about their disparate audiences.

Although the quote currently being cited on social media says, “Jay-Z ain’t got 30 songs like that,” he later cleared up his meaning, acknowledging, “he probably got 50 of them bitches.” He further clarified his point, “I’m not literally saying him. I’m saying n****s who you thinking… I’m so scared to get booed, I don’t even perform songs they won’t know.”

He could be referring to scenes like the recent Gucci Mane vs. Jeezy battle, in which Gucci was roasted by viewers for his song selection after he played a newer song featuring Bruno Mars and Kodak Black. It seems Thug may have been trying to make a point about how different songs are perceived by different audiences and the potential to play what may seem like a surefire hit to a younger crowd, but is a dud to an older one (and vice versa). He’s right that an older rapper might make for a poor match for him, but he does have one in mind.

He told the hosts he’d like to challenge Lil Wayne, who he believed ignored him when they first met — again, probably owing to the fact that Wayne doesn’t keep up with new rappers.

The NFL is increasingly the site of fascinating contract negotiations, and the latest comes between offensive lineman Russell Okung and the Carolina Panthers, as Okung confirmed on Tuesday that he had convinced the Panthers to pay out half his salary via Bitcoin.

It fulfilled a desire Okung had expressed all the way back in May 2019 with that original tweet. Since he tweeted out the goal, Bitcoin’s value on the market has increased by 273 percent, according to William Foxley of Coindesk.

Throughout the rest of the morning, Okung talked on Twitter about transitioning into a “post-fiat” (or cash) economy, adopting what he called “sound money” (Bitcoin), and the oncoming “mass adoption” of Bitcoin.

The way Okung pulled off his momentous contract renegotiation was through Strike, a third-party company that will facilitate the payment of Okung’s checks and then convert them to Bitcoin and transfer them to a “cold storage wallet,” according to Strike founder Jack Mallers, who also spoke with Coindesk.

This all apparently makes the processing of Okung’s payments cheaper and quicker than using the Bitcoin market.

In a 2019 op-ed for Coindesk, Okung wrote that the digital nature of Bitcoin would allow athletes and others whose “economic power” is controlled by “optics and circumstances” such as financial intermediaries or even just a skeptical general public.

This tracks with a tweet Okung posted on Tuesday after the announcement calling on others to use Strike and put their money “into action.”

https://twitter.com/RussellOkung/status/1343941366024433665/photo/1

It remains to be seen whether others will fall in line behind Okung and take the plunge into digital currency, but it’s worth noting that Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie has in the past discussed similarly inventive forms of compensation, including crowdfunding through Bitcoin.

Okung is also a free agent after this season, so it will be something to watch in 2021 whether he looks to be compensated more fully via Bitcoin in his next contract.

Welcome to 2021 — well… almost. Excuse us if we’re a little antsy to talk about new beer releases and leave 2020 in the rearview. It’s been a hell of a year.

The first days of the new year arrive with good news for beer drinkers: January is typically a pretty great month for fresh releases (make sure to check your local brewers‘ release calendars). The deep bench of winter beers will remain in circulation too — leaving you lots of options to get through the cold days and nights. In fact, January might be one of the best months for beer, balancing hefty winter warmers with brews that promise sunny days are, indeed, on the (semi-distant) horizon.

Hopefully, the eight beers we’re giving love to this month will pique your interest and inspire you to explore exciting brews made near you or sold at your closest bottle shops. These picks represent regional craft beer releases from breweries that we vouch for (with tasting notes from the brewers themselves if we didn’t get to taste the beer yet because of the pandemic), along with some seasonally released bottles that we’ve been looking forward to trying again.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST DROP: Deschutes Red Chair NWPA

Style: American Pale Ale
ABV: 6.2%

The Beer:

This January drop from Deschutes is styled as the perfect apres-ski beer for those days when we could hit the Oregon slopes. The suds focus in on the Cascade and Centennial hops while staying subtle enough to let the matrix of Pale, Crystal, Munich, Carapils, and Pilsner malts shine through.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear sense of bright citrus hops up top with a mild dankness. That dialed-in hoppiness is more of an accent for the rich, buttery, and caramel-scented malts that make up the foundation of this pick. The hops are 100 percent there and edge almost spicy by the end, but they never out-shine the creamy/ caramel malts below.

Bottom Line:

This is a great end-of-the-day sipper. Or grab a sixer for the end of a long week and enjoy.

SOUTHWEST DROP: Modern Times Mythic Worlds

Style: NEIPA
ABV: 7.6%

The Beer:

This is sort of the opposite of the above beer when we’re talking hop to malt balance. The Galaxy, Motueka, Mosaic, and Sultana hops are the star of the show and bring those huge flavors to the fore. Still, the Malted Wheat, Flaked Oat, and Two Row malts make a great backbone for all that flowery hoppiness.

Tasting Notes:

This really is a fruit bomb in a glass. The tropical fruits are distinctly present and touch on passionfruit, pineapple, and bright lemon zest while a fleshier and sweeter peach edge carries the taste towards the slightly malty underbelly. The whole hoppy affair will have your mouth buzzing.

Bottom Line:

This is an eye-opener. The brightness of the beer’s fruity nature will wake you up while the high-ish ABVs will keep your head nodding along, like listening to your favorite tune.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN DROP: Upslope Oatmeal Stout

Style: Oatmeal Stout
ABV: 5%

The Beer:

Sticking with oats in the bill, this limited release from Boulder’s Upslope feels like a late holiday gift when it drops every January. The base of deeply roasted malts and oats are bolstered by a small dose of East Kent Golding hops. That gives the taste a little bump of light hops to cut through the thicker aspects of the stout.

Tasting Notes:

This really smells like a malting kiln full of chocolate roasted malts next to creamy coffee bricks. There’s a light touch of toffee sweetness that adds to the creamy vanilla and dark chocolate maltiness. The hops are there as a ghost, lurking beneath everything yet reminding you that they once existed.

The overall experience is velvety and accented with a hint of earthiness on the very end.

Bottom Line:

At only five percent ABV, this is practically an everyday session beer for the short January days.

SOUTHERN DROP: Family Business Beer Co. Eyes Like the Sky

Style: NEIPA
ABV: 5.8%

The Beer:

This is one of those beers you’re going to have to be in Texas to try. Still, Family Business Beer Co. puts out some of the best craft in Hill Country and this brand new release embraces the haziest of the hazy aspects of NEIPAs.

It looks like a real winner.

Tasting Notes (from the brewer):

“A pillowy-soft body, moderate abv, and a blend of some of our favorite fruity hops. Drift away on clouds of citrusy creamsicle stone-fruit juicy goodness.”

Bottom Line:

In Nate Seale we trust. Seale is damn near a legend in brewing, so we know this beer is going to rock. Check it out if you can.

MIDWEST DROP: Bell’s Bright White

Style: Witbier
ABV: 5%

The Beer:

This winter beer leans more into the Belgian witbier standards that are being savored right now. The base is a mix of barley and wheat malts that combine with Belgian Ale yeast to really amp up the wintry vibe of the final beverage.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a sense of sourdough pancakes with orange syrup that’s been spiked with cloves. The taste delivers on those promises and adds in more fruit (think bananas, lemon, and maybe even pears). The spice and fruit lead towards a final floral note from the hops that leans almost herbaceous and savory.

Bottom Line:

This is an easy-drinking beer that’s complex yet low-ish ABV. It’d be easy to get through a sixer of this one.

NORTHEAST DROP: Brooklyn Winter Lager

Style: Schwarzbier/Lager
ABV: 5.6%

The Beer:

This beer is ending its run this month, making it now or never if you want to drink some before next winter. This beer really leans into the darkly roasted malts without the heaviness of other winter beers.

Brooklyn Winter Lager is meant to be an easy-drinker by design and they hit it out of the park.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear sense of darkly roasted coffee beans balanced with hints of light vanilla, toffee, and a touch of dark chocolate next to crusty sourdough bread. That malty/breadiness carries on through the taste as the coffee-laden malts make way for a note of hops before the vanilla/toffee/chocolate nature of the sip returns. The end has a note of winter spices on the very end that plays well with the overall feel for the beer.

Bottom Line:

This is a very easy quaffer that you should be able to find on most shelves right now.

WILD CARD DROP: Alaskan Baltic Porter

Style: Baltic Porter
ABV: 9.8%

The Beer:

Baltic Porters are kind of like the chiller twin siblings of Russian Imperial Stouts. This particularly well-crafted version amps up the already dark malts with dark cherries, French oak barrel chips, brown sugar, and vanilla beans in the beer while it rests. The result is a beer that is all about wintry vibes while also being an excellent candidate to lay down in a cellar and age.

Tasting Notes:

The maltiness of this beer is like a sheet of the softest velvet you’ve ever experienced. Those dark malts lean into coffee and chocolate notes you’d expect without overdoing the premise and adding in hints of dried fruits, black licorice, and nuts. Then the oak arrives with a hint of bourbon vanilla next to rich and buttery toffee that marries to that dried fruit and bitter coffee/chocolate.

Bottom Line:

This is a great bottle to share with someone who really digs bold beers. We’d also argue it’s worth investing in a handful and letting them age for a few years to see how they develop.

INTERNATIONAL PICK OF THE MONTH: N’Ice Chouffe

Style: Strong Ale
ABV: 10%

The Beer:

This beer is winter in a bottle. While we’d usually call this out last month, it felt like January was more suited to enjoying this one. The dark ale is crafted to bring out a warming sense of comfort during the cold winter months while also being a great pairing beer thanks to both orange oils and thyme being at the forefront.

Tasting Notes:

Thyme and curaçao are the main draws on the nose with the orange of the curaçao the most pronounced. The taste has an effervescence that keeps you hooked as the bready malts mingle with winter spices, more orange oils, and savory herbs. The ABVs are there but never feel overpowering.

The overall experience is light, full of winter vibes, and endlessly enticing.

Bottom Line:

Be careful with this one. This is delicious and you’ll want to drink a lot. But the high ABVs will catch up with you very quickly (we speak from experience on this).

Donald Trump Jr. just learned a valuable lesson: never pick a fight with a fact checker. On Tuesday morning, the president’s son attempted to twist the words of CNN’s Daniel Dale in an ill-fated attempt to make it look like the network would go “easy” on incoming president Joe Biden. (Does Don Sr. know his son is out here admitting Biden won the election?) Dale has become a rising star at CNN thanks to his Herculean efforts to fact check Donald Trump over the past four years, which understandably, took up a whole lot of his time. With Trump on his way out, Dale’s plate will be considerably less full, allowing him time to focus on other public officials who deserve their fair share of scrutiny. Junior, however, used this information to falsely accuse Dale and CNN of conspiring against the Republican Party.

“CNN ‘fact checker’ admitting that he’s pivoting from fact checking Biden to focusing on ‘online disinformation,’” Don Jr. tweeted. “AKA CNN code for Republicans who use the internet + ‘congressional leaders’ which will almost undoubtedly = congressional Republicans in practice. So predictable.”

Had Don Jr. actually read the screenshot that he retweeted, he would’ve seen that his words are not an accurate representation of what Dale said. In fact, here’s the full excerpt via The Atlantic:

“It will not be a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job to fact-check Biden,” he told me. Though he stressed that the same “intensity and rigor” should be applied to the incoming president, the simple reality is that Biden doesn’t lie nearly as often as Trump does. Consequently, Dale hopes to spend more time debunking online disinformation and digging into claims made by congressional leaders.

Of course, Dale has plenty of practice fact checking Trump, so it’s no surprise that he made short work of the president’s son.

“Not at all what I said; no ‘pivot.’” Dale tweeted. “What I said: Since Biden – like every non-Trump Republican in the 2016 field and potential 2024 field! – lies way less frequently than Trump, there’ll be time in the Biden era to *also* fact check others in addition to the president. CNN will rigorously fact check President Biden. It’s just objective and obvious fact that it takes less time to fact check basically everyone in politics than it takes to do Trump, a staggeringly incessant liar. If you choose to call me biased for stating that fact, feel free.”

You can see Dale’s full thread dunking on Don Jr. below:

(Via Daniel Dale on Twitter)

The Atlanta Hawks are off to a strong 3-0 start to the season, thanks mostly to having the league’s best offense through the first week of the regular season.

Atlanta spent their offseason spending considerably to upgrade its roster, splurging on Danilo Gallinari, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Rajon Rondo, as it made clear its intentions not just to take a leap into being a playoff contender, but also to prove to Trae Young that the organization is committed to getting him the help he’s craved. Through three games, the Hawks are averaging 123.7 points per 100 possessions, the most in the league by a full four points over the Lakers, and are second to L.A. in effective field goal percentage as a team at 59.1 percent, per Cleaning the Glass.

Young is the driving force behind this offensive explosion, as he has been fully unleashed by the newfound spacing of the Hawks offense. The third-year star is averaging 34 points and 7.3 assists per game on mind-numbing efficiency, hitting 53 percent of his shots (42.1 percent from three). Most staggering is the way he’s getting to the free throw line. Young has steadily emerged as one of the NBA’s great grifters in the same vein as James Harden and the man he’s forever tied to in his draft class, Luka Doncic. A year ago, Young got to the line 9.3 times per game, with a free throw rate of .443, while Harden’s free throw rate was .528.

Through three games this season, Young has taken the art of drawing fouls to a completely new level, one that would even make the Beard blush, as his free throw rate is an astronomical .939. He’s gone to the line 46 times while taking just 49 field goal attempts so far this season. Once at the stripe, he’s hit 42 of those 46 attempts, good for 91 percent, and has controlled every game he’s been in with his ability to change speed, embrace contact, and manipulate his way to the charity stripe.

Take this play on Monday night against the Pistons for instance and tell me it doesn’t remind you of Harden. Young rejects the screen and slithers his way past his man, sweeping his arms across his body as he recognizes the reach is on its way from the help side so he can gather, get the contact, and put up the runner off the glass for an and-1.

He’s not just learned the dark arts of finding and finishing through contact in the paint, but is finding his way to the line from the perimeter as well. Watch as he toys with Jonas Valanciunas, creating just enough space to get off a shot but also keeping the big man close enough that he goes for the aggressive closeout where Young can catch some contact down low with the subtle kickout and get himself an and-1 opportunity.

What separates the greats in the art of getting to the foul line is being able to do so in a natural way that doesn’t impede your ability to score when the fouls aren’t there, and that’s something you can see in Young. Even when he doesn’t draw the contact, you can see how it’s just become a natural part of his game when he drives. Look at the way he sweeps the arms through quickly from left to right on this floater, knowing the reach is coming from behind on his right, and even though he doesn’t get the contact, he just goes about his business and knocks down the floater.

That’s the mark of the elite grifters, the ones who transform buckets into and-1s, and missed calls (or efforts to draw contact that come up empty) into buckets. Young came into the league tabbed as the next Stephen Curry because of his smaller stature and ability to shoot from anywhere on the floor, but “short Harden” is maybe a more apt comparison for the way his offensive game has developed, which is honestly a rather incredible development.

When Young was coming into the league, one of the questions he faced was how he’d do as a finisher. In college, he wasn’t the best at the rim, didn’t seem to always embrace contact, and doesn’t have the elite athleticism to blow by defenders to create significant space to get off easy layups. Fast forward to the start of his third season and he not only accepts contact but actively seeks it out, and has developed one of the best in-between games in the league. He can get a step on a defender and, if the opportunity presents itself, he’ll just stride to the rim, but more often than not he uses an off-rhythm cadence to frustrate defenses.

He loves stopping just shy of the restricted area to pop off a floater over a closing big man and changes speed and tempo like the very best to get a defender on his hip and then create contact to get himself to the line for either a pair of free throws or an and-1 opportunity. Young has become a fan favorite for his quick trigger on three pointers and willingness to fire from anywhere on the court, but as the Hawks grow in stature and become featured on national TV more, I expect him to become one of the NBA’s great villains.

Young has the demeanor and mannerisms for it, flexing after and-1s and giving his shivering taunt after a big made three, and the game to back it all up. He is as gifted a scorer as there is in the game and has embraced the benefits that grifting your way to free points provide so shamelessly that when people begin watching more of him than the highlights, he’s destined to become a polarizing, Harden-esque figure.

This is far from a bad thing, as it should only be a compliment to be considered on that stature of offensive player, but it’s something Hawks fans (and Young) should be prepared for as the team gets better and gains more attention on a national scale. It isn’t a 1-to-1 comparison, if for no other reason than Young is a much smaller player than Harden, but the mannerisms and the way they go about creating and drawing contact so naturally within their shooting motion is uncanny. For Hawks fans, it’s something to embrace and enjoy, because it will make your team incredibly competitive, because even on nights where shots aren’t falling, when your star can march himself to the free throw line for cheap points, it can help you steal games you might otherwise lose.

For everyone else, it’s going to become an annoyance, as Young preens after his third and-1 basket of the game, offering that knowing smirk that he can, and will, do this all day.