Month: March 2021

Bebe Rexha and her fans got a nasty surprise today when a guy decided to expose himself during her Instagram Live. The pop star was connecting with fans on social media and raising awareness for her new single, “Sacrifice,” which will be out this Friday when the incident took place. Pop Crave has captured the video of Rexha on her Instagram stories after the fact apologizing to fans who might have seen the indecent images, and also fired off several tweets about finding out who was behind the prank and getting his access to social platforms removed.

Hopefully she does succeed in getting the offended user suspended or at least investigated for misusing the platform in this way. Especially for a man to come onto a woman’s Instagram and expose himself — potentially to underage female fans of Rexha — the act is particularly disgusting. Bebe gets the last word, though, by letting her followers know she’s surprised he even wanted to show them what he was working with, as she declared it wasn’t very impressive. Since people who engage in chaotic behavior like this for attention usually are very insecure, that comment probably hits him where it hurts. Anyway, look out for Bebe’s new single out later tonight.

Megan Thee Stallion is taking a moment to help her fellow Houston residents. The rapper’s hometown, along with many other cities in Texas, was slammed by a winter storm last month that results in power outages, boil water advisories and no hot water for many, as well as a senator who tried to skip out on helping for a trip to Cancun.

Hoping to speed up the road to recovery for many Houston residents, Megan has announced the Hotties Helping Houston fundraiser drive. Getting help from NACC Disaster Services and Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the drive will benefit single mothers and the elderly in the area.

Megan spoke about the drive in a post to her Instagram page. “It is always very important for me to help give back to the city that made me,” she said in the post’s caption. “I just want to say thank you to everyone who came together with me to help rebuild my hometown of Houston Texas.” Some of the names and brands that she mentioned included Maroon 5, Taraji P. Henson, Fashion Nova, her label 300 Entertainment, and Revlon. She also prompted fans to visit her website to find information on how they can help and to buy new merchandise that would see proceeds go directly to NACC’s rebuilding efforts.

You can read the announcement in the post above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Kevin Durant is the NBA’s most online superstar. His tweets from his younger years remain some of the best the app has ever seen from an athlete, and he’s never afraid to mix it up with folks online, either on Twitter or in Instagram comments, for better or worse.

As such, KD doesn’t miss much when it comes to the online discourse of the NBA, and that includes viral snippets from the various sports talk shows. During Thursday night’s NBA All-Star Draft, Durant took Nikola Vucevic of the Orlando Magic and couldn’t help but jab at ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins in the process.

For those who haven’t seen it, Perk’s attempt at saying “Vucevic” on First Take while discussing All-Star snubs and who he’d remove from the team was hilarious.

The internet had a field day with Perk for his inability to get Nikola’s name out, including this personal favorite of mine.

KD’s brief troll was a highlight of the All-Star Draft, although not quite as good as Charles Barkley calling both of them out for “Utah Jazz slander” when they left Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell for last, prompting LeBron to insist it wasn’t slander and then proceed to explain how no one has ever liked the Jazz no matter how good they are.

The 2021 NBA All-Star Draft featured LeBron James and Kevin Durant picking their squads and at the end of the process, there were two names left standing: Jazz center Rudy Gobert and Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell.

That the two All-Stars from the team with the NBA’s best record were the last selected was not going to be something anyone could ignore, and Charles Barkley couldn’t help but call out what he saw as “Utah Jazz slander” from KD and LeBron for leaving them for last.

James would address the situation at the end, insisting there was no slander and then proceeded to, well, kind of slander the entire organization’s history.

“There’s no slander to the Utah Jazz,” LeBron said. “You’ve got to understand, just like in video games growing up, we never played with Utah. As great as Karl Malone and John Stockton was, we would never pick those guys in video games.”

It’s a hysterical line, but Chuck wasn’t buying it, noting that when he said he needed size he passed over the taller Gobert for Domantas Sabonis.

It was the highlight of the night, along with LeBron promising he wouldn’t be tampering this year, and made for a delightful end to the All-Star Draft. In case the Jazz, which spent Wednesday night ripping into the officiating they’ve received this season, needed any added motivation going into the second half of the season, their top stars got it on Thursday.

The NBA All-Star Draft was held on Wednesday (airing on Thursday night), as LeBron James and Kevin Durant, the leading vote-getters in the West and East respectively, selected their rosters for the upcoming All-Star Game on Sunday. Durant won’t be playing in the game himself, as he works to rehab a lingering hamstring injury, so he had to make an extra selection in the first round, while James selected players for the fourth straight year, as he’s been a captain each time.

Back in 2019, while Anthony Davis was in the midst of his trade request that was focused on getting himself to Los Angeles to play with the Lakers, and James selected him first in the draft and immediately got called out for tampering by Giannis Antetokounmpo. This year, Giannis (who just signed a supermax in Milwaukee) went first to Team LeBron. As James explained when pressed by Kenny Smith if he’s drafting for the All-Star team or for the Lakers this year, there aren’t any free agents on the list so his selections were all about this weekend.

The results were strong for Team LeBron, as his starting group is himself, Giannis, Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, and Nikola Jokic. Still, it was a funny moment, at least for some, while others might not have enjoyed the lighthearted joking about LeBron swiping players from other teams to join him.

The 2021 NBA All-Star Game arrives on Sunday, March 7 in Atlanta, and it will be a much different experience this year. In fact, Sunday houses the entirety of the league’s All-Star Weekend festivities, and that adds a bit of intrigue. For the fourth time, the rosters were selected via a draft this week, with LeBron James and Kevin Durant acting as captains for the two squads.

While our mock draft didn’t quite flow in the exact same way, the results were still quite interesting. James has been a captain each and every time the league has used the draft format, while Durant, who is not playing due to injury, was at the helm for the first time.

The draft itself took place on Wednesday, a full day before the release of the proceedings on television. As such, it wasn’t too shocking that one of the picks leaked early, with Team LeBron tabbing Giannis Antetokounmpo with the first pick.

From there, though, there was genuine mystery, and even more so after Durant admitted that he didn’t actually prepare for the draft itself, leaning instead on the experience of playing against this batch of players. By rule, the captains went back and forth with only the pool of starters available (and Jayson Tatum replacing Durant in the pool), and the flow went this way.

1. LeBron James (Team LeBron) — Captain
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo (Team LeBron)
3. Kyrie Irving (Team Durant)
4. Stephen Curry (Team LeBron)
5. Joel Embiid (Team Durant)
6. Luka Doncic (Team LeBron)
7. Kawhi Leonard (Team Durant)
8. Nikola Jokic (Team LeBron)
9. Bradley Beal (Team Durant)
10. Jayson Tatum (Team Durant)

After the starting lineups were set on both sides, Durant had the first pick for the reserves, countering LeBron’s advantage as the leading overall vote-getter. Things flowed from there, with Durant tabbing his Nets teammate in James Harden, and the final picks in the draft were both members of the Utah Jazz in Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.

1. James Harden (Team Durant)
2. Damian Lillard (Team LeBron)
3. Devin Booker (Team Durant)
4. Ben Simmons (Team LeBron)
5. Zion Williamson (Team Durant)
6. Chris Paul (Team LeBron)
7. Zach LaVine (Team Durant)
8. Jaylen Brown (Team LeBron)
9. Julius Randle (Team Durant)
10. Paul George (Team LeBron)
11. Nikola Vucevic (Team Durant)
12. Domantas Sabonis (Team LeBron)
13. Donovan Mitchell (Team Durant)
14. Rudy Gobert (Team LeBron)

The game is scheduled for an 8:00 pm ET tip-off at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, with the national broadcast on TNT.

Here are the final rosters, in order of selection.

TEAM LEBRON: LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum, Damian Lillard, Ben Simmons, Chris Paul, Jaylen Brown

TEAM KD: Kyrie Irving, Joel Embiid, Kawhi Leonard, Bradley Beal, Jayson Tatum, James Harden, Devin Booker, Zion Williamson, Zach Lavine, Julius Randle

The politicization of basic public health measures amid the coronavirus pandemic has had deadly consequences for hundreds of thousands of Americans over the last year. Despite all of the evidence that wearing masks, limiting gatherings and staying socially distant can help limit the spread of coronavirus and prevent hospitalizations and deaths, many Republican-led cities and states have held off on mandating masks be worn in public and instituting other health policies.

Yet as vaccinations continue in America and optimism is growing that with their help and continued vigilance the country could have a more normal summer than it had in 2020, entire states rolling back mask mandates and other restrictions has been criticized by public health officials and President Joe Biden.

In an interview earlier in the week, Biden described rolling back mandates as “Neanderthal thinking” and warned that continued support for mandates and caution would be important in order to stave off a fourth spike of cases since the virus first appeared in America last winter. That phrase, however, drew the ire of Marco Rubio, who tweeted that Biden should apologize for offending… people who descended from Neanderthals?

Rubio, who once was considered a viable Republican candidate for president before he forgot how hydration works, immediately trended on Thursday because of his Twitter take. But it was mostly to make fun of Rubio for feigning outrage for what many felt was valid criticism of “reopening” swaths of the country still caught up not only in a public health crisis but, in the case of Texas, an environmental one as well.

As plenty of people pointed out online, taking offense to Biden’s criticism is pretty wild compared to the many, many things Donald Trump said while in office that never drew criticism from Republicans like Rubio.

It’s also, well, kind of a silly thing to get mad about, scientifically. And in video that was shared again this week, Rubio was more than willing to promote conspiracies and questions about Biden’s mental health during the election. Things that, in the eyes of many, were far worse than a comment using the word “Neanderthal.”

The battle of words doesn’t undo anything Texas is doing with its health mandates, but it will be another entry into the culture war that’s already seen children’s books and toys represent the demise of America rather than what’s actually threatening it: the increasingly bad health of its citizens.

The relationship between Kevin Garnett and Glen Taylor has been tenuous for a long time. Garnett famously indicated in 2020 that he did not want to have his jersey retired by the Minnesota Timberwolves as long as Taylor was the owner but, just a few months later, word broke that Garnett was attempting to work with Taylor on a potential sale of the franchise. For a long time, it has been public knowledge that Taylor was willing to sell the team, with the general stipulation that the Wolves stay in Minneapolis. Still, no sale has taken place to this point and, on Thursday, Garnett released something of a statement on Instagram, both announcing that he is essentially closing the door on being part of a purchasing group and expressing all kinds of frustration.

Garnett says he “got the news that this process of trying to acquire the TWolves is over” but also shared the potential to “focus on other places,” invoking Seattle and Las Vegas. Obviously, Garnett is not too happy that the door is seemingly closed when it comes to the franchise he spent the majority of his career playing for, but another layer of the story emerged after the Hall of Famer player’s comments.

In short, Taylor publicly indicated that he was blissfully unaware of Garnett’s interest in the first place.

“Kevin never contacted me at all saying that he was interested,” Taylor told Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “Nor was his name listed on any of the buying groups that asked for financial information to review.”

This seems to strain credibility, but Taylor may be getting into specific details knowing that he can plead ignorance in this case. Regardless, it is a bit of a curveball for the Wolves owner to suggest that, after several months of speculation, Garnett wasn’t even a name that came across his desk.

On one hand, it seems as if this saga is over. On the other, Garnett could respond to Taylor’s denial and, well, that could open the door to the discourse once again.

An eight-second joke made by Michael Che on Saturday Night Live has sparked a weeks-long controversy about anti-Semitism, coronavirus, and vaccines in the Middle East. And nearly a fortnight after it aired, Fox News hosted the prime minister of Israel to condemn the joke on air.

The incident dates back to the February 20 episode of Saturday Night Live. During the Weekend Update segment of the program, Che read about a news item that celebrated Israel’s success vaccinating a big portion of its population.

“Israel is reporting that they vaccinated half of their population,” Che said. “And I’m going to guess it’s the Jewish half.”

The reaction the next day was immediate. Che trended briefly and some conservatives condemned the comments as anti-Semitic and potentially reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Jews and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. And the Anti-Defamation League called the joke “deeply offensive.”

As the Washington Post laid out, however, there was some truth to the heart of the joke. Israel has received considerable criticism from global health leaders and Palestinian officials for not doing more to help those who are not Jewish to get vaccinated in the West Bank and other Israeli-controlled territories. Despite the great success Israel has seen in vaccinating Israelis, there are considerable barriers to getting the region’s full population vaccinated:

Palestinian leaders and international activists say Israel is obligated to ensure that Palestinians are vaccinated as quickly as possible.

“Israel bears moral and humanitarian responsibility for vaccinating the Palestinian population under its control,” said Physicians for Human Rights in an appeal to Israeli leaders Wednesday.

In an interview, Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein rejected that argument. But he acknowledged that it was in Israel’s self-interest to expand vaccinations into an adjacent population that sends thousands of workers into Israel on a daily basis.

That joke, which aired nearly two weeks ago now, has sparked minor protests and calls for NBC to comment on the situation. And neither NBC nor Che have addressed the slow-rolling controversy. And on Thursday, Fox News invited Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address Che’s joke. He called it “outrageous” and “so false” and defended his country’s vaccine rollout.

“In fact, I brought vaccines and went especially to the Arab communities, the Arab citizens of Israel and vaccinated as many as we can,” Netanyahu said in an interview from Jerusalem. “I must’ve gone to half a dozen Arab communities already, talked with the mayors there, brought the leaders, brought the doctors there, Arab doctors, this is just outrageous.”

The politician’s account of apparently hand-delivering vaccines to Palestinians aside, the back and forth over vaccination policies, and the fallout from Che’s joke, has actually sparked calls from Israeli health officials who have recommended vaccinating all Palestinians as soon as possible, according to an NPR report. So while Che’s joke has certainly received criticism in the controversy, the actual situation he was joking about seems to have only gotten more attention and may have been addressed as a result.

On Thursday night, LeBron James and Kevin Durant will sit down in chairs somewhere and get brought in remotely to the Inside the NBA set, where the pair will put together their teams for the 2021 NBA All-Star Game. The pair of captains are going to do what has become an All-Star tradition, although this year, there is a twist: Durant will not play in the game as he works his way back from a hamstring injury.

This has made the rosters a bit wonky, and for the purposes of the following very silly exercise, it made trying to figure out how to put a team together really tough. As a result, we came to a compromise wherein I, fake Kevin Durant, get two picks in the middle of the first round. My colleague Robby, as fake LeBron, still picks first in the starter round because he was the top overall vote getter, while I will pick first among the bench players. Please enjoy.

1. LeBron James (Team LeBron)

It is me, LeBron James.

2. Steph Curry (Team LeBron)

It’s the All-Star Game, so I’ll take the best shooter in the world. This is pretty simple.

3. Luka Doncic (Team KD)

My team’s singular goal is to put on as much of a show as possible. With no Kevin Durant (who, for all his brilliance, is more of a hyper efficient killer whose style doesn’t translate as well to the All-Star Game unless he plays like he did that time he went to Rucker Park), I need to go with the most fun player available and the person whose fun would best translate to the All-Star Game. This will be Luka Doncic. Admittedly, his fun is maximized by me putting the most bonkers team around him possible, and baby, just wait until you see my bench.

4. Giannis Antetokounmpo (Team LeBron)

I worked under the assumption that, with Embiid gone, I might be able to sneak Jokic in at the very end and take Giannis now. I was foiled in this plan. Giannis is now my center.

5. Joel Embiid (Team KD)

Embiid is a master showman, and despite the fact that there is no crowd, I feel like he’s the exact kind of player who would make it a point to have a blast at the All-Star Game, especially now that he’s in the midst of an MVP-caliber season and this is an opportunity to flex a bit.

6. Kawhi Leonard (Team LeBron)

Kawhi is the reigning All-Star Game MVP and I got him this late. What a steal.

7. Nikola Jokic (Team KD)

My team is ginormous and has two masterful passers. I do not care if Luka and Jokic on the same team is hilariously slow, we’re going for it, baby. Let’s pass the basketball.

8. Bradley Beal (Team KD)

Need someone who can go supernova. Bradley Beal is a professional supernova goer.

9. Kyrie Irving (Team LeBron)

We’re getting the band back together.

10. Jayson Tatum (Team KD)

Could use a wing! Also, his sub has bacon.

LeBron Bench: Damian Lillard, Devin Booker, Chris Paul, Ben Simmons, Julius Randle, Nikola Vucevic, Domantas Sabonis

Now, some would think, LeBron, you don’t have much size in your starters group, surely you’ll go after size here, right? No. There are good centers to be had further down the line, so I continue to add shooting with Dame and the man I, LeBron James, called the most disrespected player in the NBA, Devin Booker. Chris Paul is sitting there and that’s my friend so of course I’m taking him. Ben Simmons is Klutch and also can give me some needed size, and then I round it all out with a bunch of big fellas at the end, all of whom can shoot because this is the All-Star Game and that’s what counts.

KD Bench: James Harden, Zion Williamson, Paul George, Zach LaVine, Jaylen Brown, Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell

My entire strategy here was to maximize fun. My team will have James Harden, Luka Doncic, and Nikola Jokic tossing lobs to Zion Williamson, Paul George, Zach LaVine, and Jaylen Brown, what is more fun than that? As an added bonus, I have Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell on the same team as Joel Embiid, which is extra fun considering the recent events in Philadelphia that occurred on Wednesday night. And from a basketball perspective, this bench is loaded with dudes who can get the right kind of scorching hot for an All-Star Game, because any of Harden, George, LaVine, Brown, and Mitchell are all capable of seeing the ball go in a few times and then having fireballs shoot from their hands. If this is not the point of the All-Star Game, what is? Also, to hammer this home, ZION.

The full rosters we selected, look as such:

TEAM LEBRON: LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, Devin Booker, Chris Paul, Ben Simmons, Julius Randle, Nikola Vucevic, Domantas Sabonis

TEAM KD: Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Bradley Beal, Jayson Tatum James Harden, Zion Williamson, Paul George, Zach LaVine, Jaylen Brown, Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell