Month: March 2021

Cinderella’s slipper finally slipped off on Saturday night. The No. 15 Oral Roberts Golden Eagles came mere inches away from knocking off the No. 3 Arkansas Razorbacks in the Sweet 16, but Max Abmas’ prayer at the buzzer was not answered, and as a result, Arkansas will keep on dancing thanks to a 72-70 win.

With 32 seconds remaining, Oral Roberts big man Francis Lacis hit one of two free throws to tie things up at 70. On the ensuing Razorbacks possession, Jalen Tate burrowed his way into the paint, dumping a pass off to Davonte Davis for a midrange jumper to go up by two.

They didn’t quite take as much time as they could off the clock, though, and with 3.1 seconds left, the Golden Eagles went for the win. Abmas, the team’s sensational shot-making guard was able to receive the inbound pass and race up the floor despite being smothered by a pair of opponents. Somehow, he gave himself just enough space to pull up from deep, and it looked perfect, right up until it bounced off the rim and fell to the floor.

Oral Roberts was shooting to become the first 15-seed to ever make the Elite 8, and they could not have come much closer to making it happen. There will be plenty of looking back on how they could have made one or two things bounce differently — they got hammered on the glass and missed a ton of wide-open threes in the second half — but on the whole, there’s plenty to celebrate about this run. Abmas is a star (this’ll happen any time your name gets put next to Steph Curry’s for NCAA Tournament excellence), big man Kevin Obanor is a handful, and the team is slated to bring almost everyone back, barring defections to the NBA or transfers. They looked prime for another run next year, only if they make it back, we’ll bet they won’t be a 15.

The New York Knicks suffered a major loss due to injury on Saturday night. During the first quarter of their game against the Milwaukee Bucks, starting center Mitchell Robinson went down with what was eventually called a fractured right foot, although he is slated to be re-evaluated on Sunday after the team returns to New York.

Robinson, while attempting to break up a pass to Brook Lopez, came down awkwardly and did something to his right foot. It was unclear exactly what happened, but after six minutes of work, he made his way to the team’s locker room.

Shortly after, the team announced the extent of Robinson’s injury.

This is, unfortunately, the second major injury that Robinson has suffered this season. Back in February, Robinson suffered a fracture in his hand that required surgery, and injury from which he had only just returned on March 21. While the Knicks do have some understanding of how to play without their defensive stalwart at center, this is still a brutal blow for a team that has major postseason aspirations, and the big question in the coming days might be if they hop into the buyout market to add a big man.

On the year, Robinson is averaging 8.5 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.5 blocks, and 1.1 minutes in 28.2 minutes per game.

As a veteran in the twilight of his NBA career, Al Horford doesn’t make a ton of sense on a rebuilding Oklahoma City Thunder squad. With the NBA trade deadline in the rear view and Horford having a whole lot of money slated to come his way on his current contract, leaving the team this year is not tenable.

Because of this, Horford will not suit up for the Thunder again this season. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the two sides have come to a mutual agreement that Horford won’t be active for another game this year, and in a statement, Horford explained how they came to this decision.

“When I arrived, I understood the direction of the team, we had a great individual plan in place for me, and I feel like as a result I’ve played really good basketball for the Thunder. At the same time, I know what it’s like to be a young, aspiring player, and at this point in the season I understand how important playing meaningful minutes is for their careers and their development,” Horford said in a statement. “I also understand how important it is for the organization to give them that opportunity.

“I’m looking forward to supporting the guys who supported me, watching them continue to play the right way and play together as we have throughout the season, while still being around the team and continuing my training.”

Wojnarowski reports that the Thunder, Horford, and his agent will all work together to find a new landing spot during the offseason. Horford, who came to the team via a trade with the Philadelphia 76ers last offseason, will have two years and $53 million left on his deal next year.

The world of basketball and the world of music intersect pretty frequently for one reason or another. Our latest example of this came on Saturday afternoon thanks to new Toronto Raptor Rodney Hood, although it had nothing to do with him dropping a mixtape or deciding to produce an album or anything like that.

Back in June, a since-deleted post by our pal Marco Romo of Five Reasons Sports Network caught the attention of Paramore singer Hayley Williams. In it, Williams revealed that her childhood neighbor in Meridian, Mississippi, was named Rodney, helped teach her how to dance, and “may be an nba player now.”

Now, Hood is the only current NBA player from Meridian, and since the only other Rodney in the NBA is from Maryland (Rodney McGruder), we can probably make an assumption here. Anyway, some time passed, and then Hood got traded to the Raptors, where he was asked about this. Dime pal Blake Murphy of The Athletic, who I lovingly say is the NBA reporter most likely to remember that Williams tweet, brought it to Hood’s attention during his first meeting with the media up north.

Hood revealed two things: 1. He did not realize his neighbor grew up to be the lead singer of Paramore and, 2. He can’t dance.

This is now the best story in the NBA. Once bands can begin touring safely again, I sincerely hope Hood and Williams are reunited during a concert in Toronto.

Seth Rogen may have spent more recent months fighting with Ted Cruz on Twitter and throwing lots of clay, but he also recently admitted to a long-rumored on-set scuffle with a very famous actress.

Rogen was profiled in the May edition of GQ UK recently, a piece that details Rogen’s very active life on his 10-acre Los Angeles property during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s certainly a trip into a very wealthy reality few have gotten to lead over the last year, but it also detailed some very wild stories about a lot of different subjects. There are bizarre meetings with George Lucas and Nick Cage, and that’s just the start. But Rogen also admitted to something that had long been rumored about a movie he directed: that Emma Watson refused to film a particular scene in This Is The End.

The 2013 movie’s plot was simple: Rogen and other celebrities play themselves surviving the end of the world as best they can. But Watson was long rumored to have balked at a certain plot line involving, as writer Stuart McGurk put it, “Danny McBride as a cannibal and Channing Tatum as his leather-thonged gimp on a leash.” Watson apparently stormed out of the production, but while Rogen finally confirmed it happened, he stressed that there were no hard feelings between the two.

What happened? Had she not read the script properly? “I mean, I don’t look back on that and think, ‘How dare she do that?’ You know? I think sometimes when you read something, when it comes to life it doesn’t seem to be what you thought it was. But it was not some terrible ending to our relationship. She came back the next day to say goodbye. She helped promote the film. No hard feelings and I couldn’t be happier with how the film turned out in the end.” Besides, he says, “She was probably right. It was probably funnier the way we ended up doing it.”

In the GQ UK story, This Is The End was first brought up because of an insane story about Snoop Dogg, who was tasked with writing a song for the movie. So it’s really difficult to pull just one story out of the piece without simply insisting that you just read the whole thing for yourself. But now we know that there were troubles while making This Is The End, even if Rogen insists it’s all water under the bridge by now.

[via Deadline]

Pat Sajak is certainly known for his quick wit on Wheel of Fortune, even if some fans think he can occasionally cross the line. A recent instance where he appeared to make fun of a contestant’s speech impediment, for example, drew outrage from viewers and even sparked a petition for his removal from the show.

Other times, though, fans have appreciated Sajak’s quick thinking and banter with contestants. And that’s mostly been the response from fans after Friday night’s episode, when the longtime host made what some thought was a reference to a very suggestive euphemism.

Contestant Heather was working on a puzzle on Friday night when she asked for the letter D. It’s a common occasion on the show, as D is one of the more common letters in the English alphabet. But viewers, including noted video capturer CJ Fogler, certainly took notice of Sajak’s response when Heather asked for the letter.

“She wants a D, and she’s going to get one,” Sajak said after a brief pause. It was a quick reply, and one that wasn’t explicitly, well, explicit. But most people seemed to be picking up what they appeared to think Sajak was putting down here.

At least he didn’t open the prize envelope early this time, I guess.

Perhaps the most highly-anticipated college basketball game that took place on Saturday came when UConn and Iowa squared off in the Women’s NCAA Tournament. So much of the anticipation came from the true freshman matchup between the Huskies’ Paige Bueckers and the Hawkeyes’ Caitlin Clark, and while the game was not especially close — No. 1 UConn beat No. 5 Iowa, 92-72 — these two going toe-to-toe was a glimpse at one of the best individual rivalries that the sport of basketball will have for the next few decades, even if both are close friends.

In the aftermath of the game, Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green took to Twitter to discuss women’s sports. Namely, he wanted to discuss how it, as an entity, could grow in prominence, specifically mentioning the conversation around unequal pay.

Green’s broad point, told through a series of tweets that he didn’t know how to thread: Focusing on pay and not unlocking ways to increase revenue by “telling INDIVIDUAL stories and building up the interest in the players.”

As a potential example of this, Green wondered why Bueckers does not declare for the 2021 WNBA Draft, saying that while he understands she is not eligible by the terms laid out by the league’s CBA, he believes this would be the kind of norm-shattering event that takes power from leagues and gives it to players.

Now, even if Green’s intentions are not coming from a bad place, he does show his overall ignorance on the subject by suggesting the issue is that women athletes are not doing everything they can to promote change. An expert in this field, USWNT star and fervent advocate for equality in sports Megan Rapinoe, saw what Green had to say and issued a response.

Among other things, Rapinoe made the point that there is only so far that folks like her and the USWNT can take their battle on their own, saying that “change cannot be made if the only people who care about the change enough are the ones who are suffering the most from it.”

Green went on to say that stories involving women athletes, mentioning Diana Taurasi, are not told. Rapinoe then responded by saying this is not because Taurasi doesn’t have a compelling story or there haven’t been attempts to tell it, but rather, because no one wants to tell it.

Rapinoe might be the authority on these sorts of things — she went to Washington this week on Equal Pay Day to testify in front of Congress and visit the White House alongside USWNT teammate Midge Purce — so it would behoove Green to both listen to what she has to say and do what he can do as one of the most prominent athletes in the United States to be part of the solution here.

Most of the focus on Thursday in the NBA world was on the myriad action before the league’s annual trade deadline. From Nikola Vucevic to Victor Oladipo and others, many prominent names are on the move, while others like Kyle Lowry are staying put after all kinds of rumblings. Another well-decorated player that was not traded on Thursday is seven-time All-Star big man LaMarcus Aldridge but, rather than staying with the San Antonio Spurs, the two sides came to a buyout agreement that was announced shortly after the deadline.

It comes as no surprise that Aldridge and the Spurs are parting ways, simply because that was the widespread expectation for the last few weeks. However, no trade could be found and Aldridge reportedly gave back a hefty sum to pave the way to free agency. Then, several days later, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Aldridge will head to the Brooklyn Nets, something that was eventually confirmed by the big man’s agent.

Brooklyn’s frontcourt has been a weak spot ever since parting ways with Jarrett Allen in the James Harden trade. While promising big man Nic Claxton has emerged, Aldridge provides an interesting element as a potential “stretch big” that can shoot threes (37.9 percent in the last two seasons) and defend reasonably at the rim, should he work his way into the team’s rotation.

It will be interesting to see how Aldridge fits in with the Nets, presumably because he will be in a vastly different role than he has occupied for more than a decade with the Blazers and Spurs. He is no longer a foundational piece and, in Brooklyn, he will take a backseat to the team’s considerable offensive firepower, minimizing his role and maximizing what he can still bring to a team.

For all intents and purposes, three teams are jockeying for the 1-seed in the Eastern Conference this season. While a handful of teams — up-and-comers like the Bulls, Hawks, Hornets, and Knicks or usual stalwarts hoping to catch fire down the stretch like the Celtics, Heat, Pacers, and Raptors — will do everything they can to crash the party after the trade deadline came and went, there is a clear gap between all of those teams and the trio at the top.

The Philadelphia 76ers have held onto the 1-seed while Joel Embiid has been out with a knee injury, while the Brooklyn Nets are a game and a half back and the Milwaukee Bucks are 2.5 back. Funny enough, the odds of winning a championship jumble that trio: The Nets are the favorites league-wide at +250, with the Bucks sitting pretty at +900 and the Sixers coming in at +1100 following the deadline.

It is impossible to predict with total certainty on March 27 what comes of all of this. It is incredibly plausible that any of these teams can come out of the East, both because of how wide open things are this season and because they’re all incredibly good — in various ways, the trio of stars all of these squads possess (Embiid/Harris/Simmons, Durant/Harden/Irving, Antetokounmpo/Holiday/Middleton) can give the others problems, and in a superstar-driven league, this is going to matter as we get to the postseason.

All of this makes the race for the 1-seed this year so much more important than it has been in recent memory. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic means we won’t know how home-court advantage will manifest — it seems hard to imagine that we’ll be able to safely see 17,000+ people into an arena any time soon — a case can be made that going all-out to get the 1-seed is the single most important thing that Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and Philly can do over the coming two months.

Yes, getting to host a potential Game 7 in the conference finals in your own building is a huge plus, regardless of whether big crowds are involved. But beyond that, the sheer ability to avoid the other two teams in the conference semis is such a huge potential boost to the 1-seed that the calculus that comes from resting players down the stretch is changed somewhat. Instead of Philly giving Joel Embiid an extra couple of games off, or Steve Nash going all-in on load management, the potential to avoid one another or the Bucks — instead getting, in theory, a far more manageable matchup against the winner of the 4/5 series — is itself a potential gigantic boost for a team’s hopes of making the NBA Finals.

Projecting out the remainder of the season, Tankathon notes that the Sixers have the easiest schedule of the bunch, with the good news for them being that only one of them — Saturday night’s trip to L.A. to take on the Clippers — occurs before Embiid is expected to return from his knee injury. All three teams play one another at least once before the season ends: Milwaukee plays both Brooklyn and Philly twice, while the Nets and Sixers square off once during a mid-April tilt in the City of Brotherly Love. And while we can only take so much out of regular season matchups, the teams have generally played one another close this season. The Bucks beat the Sixers by four in overtime earlier this month, the Nets beat Milwaukee by two in January, and while the season series is split, 1-1, between the two Atlantic Division squads, Philly outscored Brooklyn by three points over 96 minutes of action.

All of this is to say these are three very, very good teams that play one another pretty well, although we’ll certainly learn more as they continue to meet down the stretch. All three teams are in the top-10 in net rating, with Milwaukee being the best of the bunch and Philly being the best of the trio (and the entire league) over the last month. Brooklyn, meanwhile, is the farthest from their potential final form of the group, as the Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving grouping has only played 186 minutes together due to various injuries and absences. The biggest thing looming here is Durant’s absence with a hamstring injury that has held him out since Feb. 13, but Steve Nash seems optimistic his return is around the corner.

Regardless of when Durant comes back, all three of these teams are going to be dangerous in the regular season. All have at least 26 games left to figure out whatever tweaks need to be made and make a push for the 1-seed, which is very, very attainable for all of them. It is, with the trade deadline passed, the crown jewel for which all three teams are battling, because while playing Atlanta or Miami or New York is not easy, it is far more palatable of a second-round matchup than the 2 or the 3. It won’t mean a sure-fire berth in the NBA Finals, of course, but beating championship-caliber teams in the conference semis and the conference finals is extremely hard. At the very least, this, along with the fact that teams 4-10 are separated by 3.5 games and do not want to need to go to the play-in tournament to earn a playoff berth, will hopefully mean that the stretch run of the regular season in the Eastern Conference is as good as ever.

While the reaction to Lil Nas X’s new single “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” has been mixed, largely because of its music video and the images displayed in it, the singer has landed upon early success with the track itself. On Saturday morning, the rapper learned the video for his new song reached 10 million views on YouTube and rose to the top position on the platform’s Trending section. In addition to that, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” debuted at No. 3 on the US Spotify chart with 1.236 million streams. The great start left Lil Nas X overjoyed and he posted a video on Twitter to thank fans for their support.

“I just woke up so it’s sh*t probably all over my face,” he said in the video. “I just hit No. 1 on YouTube Trending, 10 million views, and we No. 3 on Spotify and I want to say thank you to everybody cause I don’t take none of this sh*t for granted. I appreciate you, I love you, this sh*t took a lot for me to step out of my comfort zone like this. Yeah man, I love y’all.”

This video, which he also posted on Instagram, produced another great moment for Lil Nas X as it brought forth a comment from his fourth grade teacher who said, “Congratulations! So proud of you!”

After posting the video, Lil Nas shared another personal message about the new single. “I spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the sh*t y’all preached would happen to me because I was gay,” he said. “So I hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.”

You can watch Lil Nas’ thank you video above.