Month: February 2021

For the second year in a row, Luka Doncic will start in the All-Star Game, parlaying his prolific season at the helm of the Dallas Mavericks’ offense into a starting nod. He’s a deserved selection, but in his own eyes, the fact that received the honor is a bit of a surprise.

Doncic spoke to the media on Saturday afternoon and expressed that he did not anticipate that he’d be picked as one of the 10 players who begin the game, which will take place next month in Atlanta. This is because he believed that Damian Lillard “maybe deserved” to get the spot over him.

To be clear, Doncic has put up gigantic numbers this season — he’s putting up 29.1 points, 9.4 assists, and 8.6 rebounds per game — so this statement is likely more of an endorsement of Lillard than anything. Lillard has perhaps been the league’s most must-see player of late, willing the Portland Trail Blazers to the 4-seed in the Western Conference despite the fact that both C.J. McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic are sidelined with injuries. On the year, Lillard is averaging 29.8 points, 7.7 assists, and 4.4 boards a night, but beyond that, there has been something that feels inevitable about him when he takes the floor that few other players in the league can match.

The All-Star Game is tricky in that there are always more than 10 players who feasibly deserve to start, even if only 10 can get the honor. Still, Doncic is right that Lillard was snubbed.

The Biden presidency has had plenty of chaotic things to deal with in the early weeks of its control over the federal government. The COVID-19 pandemic continues, and a vaccine rollout has occupied much of its time as it picks up the pieces left by Donald Trump’s coup-filled administration. But despite plenty to do — the latest a disaster relief effort in Texas — some of Biden’s biggest critics are lobbing insults at… his dog?

Newsmax, a right wing, Trump-supporting cable news channel, has had some issues with sticking to facts in the final months of Trump’s term when it came to election results and baseless claims of voter fraud. And now it seems its anchors are focusing on something the Trump presidency lacked: dogs. On Friday, anchor Greg Kelly unleashed a segment where he blasted a 12-year-old German Shepherd named Champ in a clip that quickly went viral.

“Did you see the dog?” Kelly asked on the show Friday. “Doesn’t he look a little, uh, a little rough? I love dogs, but this dog needs a bath and a comb and all kinds of love and care. I’ve never seen a dog in the White House like this.”

Kelly is trying to joke about Biden’s dog, calling it unpresidential. But there are, of course, lots of other things currently going on in America that could deserve some airtime. This segment, mind you, comes a day after Ted Cruz’s international escape amid a climate disaster in Texas. And the network’s beloved Trump, mind you, broke a fairly substantial unofficial presidential tradition by not having a pet of any kind in the White House during his time in office.

There are a lot of ways to look at the line of attack here, either as a blatant ploy to go viral or simply a look at how desperate far right news organizations are to find something wrong with Biden’s administration. But even Brian Williams couldn’t let it go, addressing in on 11th Hour on Friday night.

“Think of it this way: If Champ were to meet Greg Kelly, he would probably love Greg Kelly unconditionally,” Williams said. “That’s what dogs do. Probably also why there are no dogs anchoring Newsmax.”

It’s unclear if Champ, who is a dog, has any comment on the rough (ruff?) treatment on a news network. We’ll keep you posted if he speaks up, though.

Prior to December, much of the anger and frustration that was directed at Playboi Carti had to do with his extremely-delayed album, Whole Lotta Red. Finally, on Christmas Day, the rapper released the project to the delight of his fans and the lukewarm reception of critics. While the displeasures with the rapper have calmed down over the last couple of months, the rapper was recently approached and threatened by a man in a video that was shared on social media.

It’s unknown where or when the incident occurred but in the video, the man and someone else, who recorded the confrontation, approached Carti and angrily spoke to the rapper. The man then claims that he can beat Carti up if they got into a fight. For much of the video, the rapper can be seen with his hand behind his back, a stance that made the two individuals that approach him believe he was holding a gun.

Despite their thoughts, a weapon did not appear in the video. Eventually, the man claims that Carti put his hands on his sister. The rapper immediately denied the accusation and soon the camera moves away from the rapper, making it hard to tell what happened next.

After the incident, Carti took to Twitter and said, “i KnOck br0 oUT . hE WAS bEInG TOo cRAZY !”

You can watch the incident in the video above.

Just one day after the team reportedly chose to guarantee his contract for the remainder of the year, a report indicates that DeMarcus Cousins and the Houston Rockets will part ways soon. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the two sides are headed towards a break-up as Houston has its eyes set on changing how it plays and investing in its future when Christian Wood returns to the lineup.

After missing all of last season due to an ACL tear, Cousins joined the Rockets on a one-year deal this past offseason. He hasn’t been the dominant player he was earlier in his career that could be relied upon for a double-double on a nightly basis, but Cousins has been a nice piece in Houston, averaging 9.6 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 2.4 assists in 20.2 minutes a night.

Wood, however, was playing sensational basketball prior to going down with an ankle injury that has held him out since early February. Getting him back into the lineup allows the Rockets to play smaller and faster, theoretically, and with the team sitting at 11-17 on the year, it makes sense to go all-in on what this team could look like down the road. As for where Cousins lands next, Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated reports that he should have “plenty” of teams vying for his services.

On Friday, news arrived that Kim Kardashian reportedly filed for divorce from Kanye West. According to a “court source” that spoke to Variety, the paperwork for the divorce was filed the same day that news arrived. The official filing comes after months of rumors that their seven-year marriage was close to coming to an end and in the paperwork, the split was described “as amicable as a divorce can be.” Now, a source close to People reports that Kanye West is blaming his 2020 run for president as the breakpoint in his marriage with Kim Kardashian.

“He’s in that place of ‘if only,’” the source says. “‘If only I had done this, if only I hadn’t done that.’ He’s processing things.” They added, “He thinks that the Presidential run was the straw that broke the camel’s back… Before that, there was hope. After that, none. It cost him his marriage.” The publication reports that their marriage began to spiral last summer during the rapper’s social media outbursts. Things between West and Kardashian would only worsen after his controversial South Carolina rally. There, he revealed Kardashian considered an abortion in 2012 for their eldest daughter, North.

A source told People that Kardashian was “shocked that Kanye spoke about North at the rally” and “furious that he shared something so private.” Last July, Kanye said a divorce between himself and Kardashian would happen soon while suggesting something occurred between her and Meek Mill. He later apologized for the accusation.

Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The NHL’s truncated 2021 season has a lot of unique quirks, starting with teams playing opponents on consecutive nights that makes the schedule look more like a baseball season than a hockey campaign. But the league did continue its proud tradition of outdoor games, eschewing stadiums with fans and skipping the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day for a two-game set in Lake Tahoe that started on Saturday.

It’s actually a really smart decision for the league: with crowds not really a good idea anyway, the league set up a rink right beside the lake for one of the most scenic backdrops a professional sport has ever created. No fans in attendance, just two teams, a few people in kayaks and NBC TV cameras to broadcast it to people trapped in their homes anyway.

The views were nothing short of spectacular.

Saturday’s game between the Colorado Avalanche and Las Vegas Golden Knights featured sunny skies, gorgeous lake views and mountains in the backdrop for a truly picturesque television event. But as the game actually took place on the outdoor rink, ice conditions quickly deteriorated. The problem was what made the sight so beautiful in the first place: an unrelenting sun that didn’t allow the ice to set and created huge ruts in the playing surface as it broke apart.

The lake that made the sights so spectacular actually hurt the league’s hopes that the puffy clouds in the distance would come rescue the ice. And so things got worse as play continued in the first period. Players were visibly complaining about certain parts of the ice, falling or pointing out problem areas to officials.

During the first intermission, NBC showed replays that featured an official falling during a stoppage in play, followed seconds later by another player hitting a different rut on the other side of the ice. While the league discussed what to do, crews frantically tried to repair things and hope for cloud cover that simply never showed up in time. The league announced a long intermission to try to repair things, and also quickly pushed Sunday’s game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins to a 7 p.m. start, after sunset and hopefully giving them long enough to repair the ice whenever the first game could get wrapped up.

Not everyone had a great time during one of the longest first intermissions in league history, with the Avalanche leading the Golden Knights, 1-0, for a very long time while workers repaired the ice and even laid protective tarps out on the surface.

By early evening, the league decided conditions were unsafe to continue, and the final two periods were rescheduled for 9 p.m. local time, midnight on the east coast. Outdoor games always have their issues, and sun is definitely a concern because of the wear and tear of a professional hockey game can have on a surface made brittle by solar heat. But cloud cover can also bring snow, equally scenic but just as troublesome if it changes ice conditions, as it did at the first Winter Classic in 2008 in Buffalo when an ice resurfacer actually broke because of all the accumulation.

Saturday’s troubles speak to the challenges of holding outdoor games no matter where they are, and hockey fans have learned to expect delays and issues at these events. But for the league, and some who marveled over them on Saturday before play had to stop, the views certainly seem well worth all the trouble.

The #FreeBritney movement has some new supporters. Yesterday, Miami radio station Hits 97.3 tweeted that they’d be playing Britney’s music all weekend in honor of the pop legend, while also standing in solidarity with her and the legal situation she’s currently embroiled in. As The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears made abundantly clear, Spears is in an illegal and abusive conservatorship — as conservatorship lawyer Lisa MacCarley also confirmed to us in an interview — and fans have been putting public pressure on the case for years now. The documentary has helped the situation move from the world of pop to a mainstream conversation, and radio stations are showing their support by raising awareness further.

97.3 wasn’t the only station committing to support the cause, either — as Pop Crave points out, Long Island station 106.1 BLI posted a similar message, commiting to play her music every hour, and Hits 106.1 in Seattle even changed their avatar on Twitter to a photo including the #FreeBritney hashtag. The Seattle station also let fans know that if they’re not connected to terrestrial radio, they can listen via the iHeartRadio app as well.

Hopefully this show of support and continued public outcry will help Britney continue fighting for a fair legal situation, one that doesn’t involve her father Jamie Spears calling all the shots.

People in Texas are still dealing with the fallout from the winter storm that annihilated the state’s power grid and caused numerous untold horrors this week. As is oftentimes the case when natural disasters occur, concerns like folks going hungry are popping up across the state, with grocery stores and food banks dealing with dwindling resources and broken supply chains.

One now-former Texan wants to use his recently-opened restaurant as a way to support the community. On Saturday, James Harden’s restaurant, Thirteen, will give out meals to those who need it in the city of Houston. The information was posted to the restaurant’s Instagram account and said that food will be provided by James Harden and “the relief gang.”

Harden, of course, was the face of the Houston Rockets organization for years before his trade to the Brooklyn Nets earlier this season. During his tenure with the Rockets, Harden was a consistent top-2 MVP finisher, winning the award in 2018 and being named an All-Star eight times. He was also the player who epitomized the Rockets’ well-documented style of play, becoming one of, if not the, most efficient offensive players in NBA history.

Despite the fact that he’s now part of a high-profile superteam in Brooklyn, Harden’s time in the Lone Star State left an impact on him, and as a result, he’s lending a hand during quite the difficult time.

Almost five years after his last appearance, Nick Jonas is returning to the Saturday Night Live stage in an upcoming episode. On February 27, the singer will serve as both the host as the musical guest for the show. Jonas shared the news in a post on Twitter where he wrote, “A dream come true. Let’s get it @nbcsnl!!”

This will be the second time the singer appeared on the show as a musical guest, with the first time coming in 2016 after he released his third solo album, Last Year Was Complicated. According to Vulture, Nick will also promote his upcoming “Spaceman” single, which arrives two days before the episode.

The song will be the singer’s first release single since 2018’s “Right Now” with Robin Schulz. It’s unknown if the track will lead to a new album, but if it does, it will be his first full-length effort since Last Year Was Complicated. The lengthy break between solo albums can be credited to the Jonas Brothers reunion in 2019, which resulted in their Happiness Begins project. The group later promised their sixth album would arrive “sooner thank you might think.” Nick also appeared on season 18 of The Voice as a coach and is set to reassume that position on the show’s upcoming twentieth episode.

The announcement from SNL comes after the show revealed Bad Bunny will be the musical guest for their February 20 episode.

Jim Henson’s work with puppets is legendary, and on Saturday people online celebrated some decidedly different Muppet brilliance from Henson’s career. Much like Michelle Pfeiffer’s Batman Returns whip stunt that went viral decades after it was filmed, Henson’s work for a now-defunct Washington coffee brand circulated on social media more than half a century after they aired on TV.

The Wilkins Coffee spots, more than 150 of them in all according to a Muppet Fandom site, were all over Twitter on Saturday. Which would be a nice bit of viral marketing if Wilkins Coffee still existed. The commercials starred two puppets and aired in the late 1950s an early 60s, and they’re extremely short. They all have the same basic plot: Wilkins asks Wontkins something about coffee, Wontkins refuses or says he doesn’t like coffee. And then Wilkins does something brutally violent to his puppet companion as a result.

Sometimes he throws a bomb in his home, or is seen cleaning blood off a sword, presumably after stabbing Wontkins with it. He’s hit by a train. Thrown from a tree. Often, he’s abruptly shot dead. There is often a one-liner that matches the way Wontkins meets his maker. It’s all brutally violent, especially for puppet fare, but its unexpected punch lines are extremely funny. And there are a lot of these commercials. The video above, for example, has 15 minutes of Wilkins terrorizing Wontkins. And as the clips went viral on Twitter, people shared some of their favorites.

A Washington Post story from 2019 sheds a bit more light on the spots that resurfaced and trended on Twitter on Saturday. They were something of a TV revolution, and Wilkins and Wontkins actually became stars in their own right.

As Brian Jay Jones put it in his 2013 biography of Henson: “In Wilkins and Wontkins, Jim had created the kind of silly and endearing characters that were already becoming his trademark — the kind of characters that could even let him get away with being a little dangerous.”

The ads were a hit. Wrote one newspaper critic: “The TV public, weary of looking at such things as gurgling stomach acids at work, took the Wilkins Muppets to heart. No TV commercial ever has known such popularity.”

Wilkins credited the spots with a 300 percent increase in the home sales of its coffee. In 1958, 25,000 pairs of vinyl Wilkins and Wontkins puppets were sold.

It’s a lesson in enduring comedy for sure: ads built for a completely different era of TV where station identification spots were just 10 seconds long. It’s basically Muppet Vine, though extremely quick, and violent. And about six decades later, extremely funny. But it’s also a nice lesson that comedy involving violence and cruel behavior doesn’t necessarily need to be bloody to be brutal. As long as puppets are involved, of course.