Month: May 2021

After the Trail Blazers beat the Jazz and the Mavericks beat the Grizzlies, the Lakers needed a win over the Rockets to avoid being locked into the play-in with two games to go in the season. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have been an issue against a depleted, 8-man Houston side, but the Lakers came in shorthanded as well, with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Dennis Schröder, Alex Caruso, and Marc Gasol all out for banner night at Staples Center.

What ensued was a wild game that produced powerful Summer League vibes, with Kelly Olynyk having a big night with 24 points, eight assists, and six rebounds for Houston, along with 24 points from Armani Brooks and a 20-11 night from Kenyon Martin Jr. Their performance pushed the Lakers down to the final possession, as L.A. needed some late game heroics from Kyle Kuzma to avoid a dismal loss that would’ve locked them into the 7-seed.

Kuzma, who had 19 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists off the bench, got the ball up top after Houston bottled up Talen Horton-Tucker (who led L.A. with 23 points and 10 assists), and proceeded to make a smooth take to the basket for a go-ahead bucket with 6.9 seconds to play.

The Rockets went to Olynyk on their final possession, but the veteran big man had the ball poked away by Wes Matthews in the high post and Houston never got a shot up at a win, with Horton-Tucker splitting his late free throws to give the Lakers a 124-122 win.

With the win, the Lakers kept their hopes of avoiding the play-in alive and managed to do so without rushing back LeBron or having to play AD on a back-to-back. They will now have two days off before playing the Pacers on Saturday night, and will know if they have a shot at catching Portland and/or Dallas by the time that game tips off. The Blazers play the Suns on Thursday night, with Portland able to secure a playoff spot with a win as Phoenix is still looking to lock down the 2-seed and possibly chase down Utah for the 1-seed out West. On Friday, the Mavs host the Raptors, where a win will likewise set them in the playoffs and should both Portland and Dallas win, the Lakers will know they are in the play-in by the time the Pacers game rolls around.

They still are expected to have LeBron back for that game to get him a tune-up prior to the play-in or playoffs, but how much they play he and AD on Saturday could be determined by whether they still have a 6-seed to play for.

The Brooklyn Nets picked up their 46th win of the season on Wednesday night, beating the Spurs in comfortable fashion in a 128-116 victory to all but secure the 2-seed in the East. A win over a play-in team isn’t major news for a squad like the Nets, but Wednesday’s game was an important one as it saw the return of James Harden after missing 20 games with a hamstring strain.

As has seemingly been the case every time one of the Nets’ stars returns from an absence, Harden and the team as a whole didn’t miss a beat, as he came off the bench to score 18 points, dish out 11 assists, and pull down seven rebounds in 26 minutes on the court. Brooklyn is still waiting to get all of their stars together, as Kyrie Irving missed the Spurs game with a facial contusion, but seeing Harden looking like his normal self was a welcome sight for the Nets and their fans.

After the game, Harden was asked if he was surprised to be able to find his rhythm so quickly after a 20-game absence and offered a tremendous response.

“Not really. Not to brag or anything, but I’m, like, really good at this game,” Harden said. “I study the game, very unselfish. I take the game and I play it the right way every single night. So, I don’t try to do anything I can’t do or doesn’t benefit my team. That mindset right there keeps me in a really good place.”

It is an objective truth that James Harden is really good at basketball, so he definitely isn’t lying when he says that and what he’s talking about — staying within himself and playing his game — is a really good message to young players. It’s something all the Nets stars do and is part of why they are so successful in returning after absences, as Harden and KD and Kyrie all know themselves, their games, and how they need to play to help the team. They aren’t pressing to do too much after missing time and aren’t asked to do that in the way some stars are, and it’s part of the luxury of having three superstars but, even when others are out, they know how to excel without needing to try to expand their games beyond what they’re best at. It helps to have some of the best offensive games of any player in the league, because the comfort zone for someone like Harden is so big, but it’s a message that should resonate with guys even in smaller roles to be the best version of who you are at the moment. That will help yourself and your team more than trying to do too much, and the Nets are a good example of a team that does that well.

Early today, Republicans in the House of Representatives voice-voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership position, inspiring “Cowards” and “Cult of Cowards” to trend on Twitter for much of the day. Her crime: acknowledging reality, apparently — refusing to bend the knee to Trump and repeatedly calling him out for his lies about the 2020 election being stolen and pinning blame on squarely on him for the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th.

Tonight, Sean Hannity went after Cheney in a rambling diatribe, accusing her of harboring “psychotic rage” at Donald Trump while also chastising her for the sin of granting an interview to MSNBC. Hannity also went out of his way to explain that Cheney was not “canceled” — no, conservatives would never do that. Rather, she was “fired,” according to Hannity.

“And by the way, for the record, you were not canceled, you were removed from leadership because you put your selfish agenda ahead of the party’s agenda and the caucus fired you from your leadership position for your failure to lead the agenda,” Hannity explained. “You will likely be canceled, but it will be the people of Wyoming that cancel you, but that’s not till election day. You have plenty of time to soak in all the love from Democrats and your new friends in the media that were so kind and so loving to you and your family and your dad and your mom, just wonderful people.”

We look forward to the inevitable Donald Trump press release praising Hannity for his borderline incoherent rant.

Snoop Dogg is undoubtedly a legend in the hip-hop world. His work dates back to the 1990s and to this day, the Long Beach rapper continues to release new music for his fanbase to enjoy. His most recent effort came back in April with From The Streets 2 Tha Suites, a ten-track album he released to celebrate the month’s weed-themed 4/20 holiday. Fast forward to the present and the rapper just revealed that he’s working on an anthology series about his life. In a recent interview with Yahoo Entertainment, the rapper spoke about the project and detailed what fans can expect.

“I think what makes the most sense to me is the Snoop Dogg anthology, the life story of Snoop Dogg where it starts with my mother and father meeting each other before I was even born, to me being born, to me growing through the ‘70s and ‘80s and the ‘90s,” he said. “Me being the ‘Black Forest Gump,’ so to speak, seeing me in all of these highlighted moments in American history. We’re developing that, putting it together as we speak, just trying to take my time and put the right information out.” Snoop also made sure to say that he’s in no rush to release the anthology series to the public.

“I want to take my time and make sure that I’ve put together the right infrastructure of how I became me—you know, the people that inspire me, my upbringing, my mother, my father, my friends, community influences, inspirations that shaped and molded me,” he said. “I don’t see it being a biopic because I can’t give all of this great information and entertainment in two hours. But if I give it to you in an anthology, you’re likely to get six or seven seasons of this.”

The six guaranteed playoff spots in the Eastern Conference are officially accounted for after the Atlanta Hawks beat the Washington Wizards and the Boston Celtics lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night. The Hawks win secured their first playoff berth since 2016-17, while the Celtics loss locked the New York Knicks into the playoffs for the first time since 2012-13.

Boston is now officially in the play-in tournament along with the Hornets and Pacers. The Wizards still need one more win or a loss from the Bulls to clinch their spot in the play-in next week, and once that happens all 10 spots will be accounted for.

Now, there is still some seeding drama to unfold, as the Hawks are currently in 4th but are just a half-game ahead of the Knicks and Heat, meaning the matchup for the 4-5 game is still very much to be determined. Making that game is going to be something those teams very much want to happen, as the 6-seed is likely going to face the 3-seed Milwaukee Bucks, who are now 1.5 games behind the Nets after Brooklyn’s win over San Antonio.

In the play-in, no one is locked into a seed yet, as the Celtics are just 1.5 games up on Indiana and Charlotte, who are tied for the 8-seed with the Hornets owning the tiebreaker. Making the 7-8 matchup is of incredible importance for the play-in as it requires just one win to make the playoffs rather than two from the 9-10 matchup.

The NFL held its 2021 schedule release on Wednesday night, as teams got to unveil their 17-game schedules which, as always, involved fun videos from their social media accounts to unveil their upcoming slate of games.

For some, like the Chiefs, this meant going back to old footage to craft a clever video to reveal their full schedule — pulling Reid saying “a good football team” for Washington was an especially nice touch.

Others put a lot more time, money, and effort into producing their schedule release video, and it should come as no surprise that Jerry Jones and the Cowboys tried to one-up everyone with their video. Dallas pulled in Post Malone to help with a wild video that involves him delivering the schedule to Jerry Jones and the two celebrating by playing beer pong, Post putting a giant Cowboys logo necklace on Jerry, and then the two making it rain schedules on Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott.

I like how much Zeke sold his part by jumping up and down trying to catch the mini schedules Post Malone and Jerry Jones were raining down on to him, and I guess when you’re the Cowboys you have the ability to spend whatever it cost to get Post Malone to do this. That Jerry put himself front and center is also unsurprising, and the funniest part is that the schedule just kind of flashes up there at the very end.

Late last month, Jack Harlow was caught a bit too close to a deadly nightclub shooting in his hometown of Lousiville, Kentucky. The incident occurred at the city’s Ultra Lounge, which he attended prior to that weekend’s Kentucky Derby. This incident left one woman, Kasmira Nash, dead and another man with non-life-threatening injuries. More than a week after the incident, a grand jury indicted Ronnie Luciano, Harlow’s DJ, on murder and tampering with evidence charges, which the rapper turned himself in for earlier this week. While Harlow stayed quiet as the incident and investigation unfolded, he finally broke his silence and spoke about the shooting in a post to his Instagram story.

“My heart is broken by the events that occurred over Derby weekend,” Harlow said. “My heart breaks for Kasmira, her children, and everyone else touched by this tragic death. My heart breaks for my city, a place that’s been through too much pain already. I’ve been in touch with Kasmira’s family during this unimaginably painful time, and I’m grateful to them for keeping the lines of communication open.” He added, “Nothing can reverse what happened. Too many lives have been changed forever, My life will remain committed to making Louisville a better place.”

You can view Harlow’s message in the post above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Chika has experienced her fair share of struggles within the industry over the past month. In April, she announced her retirement from music due to the “mental toll” that she endured during her time as an artist. Shortly after, Chika revealed that she attempted to take her own life before decided to not retire from music world after all. Now, she claims that the latest issue she faces comes at the hands of Nicki Minaj’s biggest online stans.

Earlier this week, Chika shared a tweet that clarified her stance on Minaj, which seemed to be previously misunderstood by the fellow rapper’s fans. “I never say her name bc her fans are wild, but I wanna go on record and say I literally have no problem with Nicki,” she wrote. “She paved a way for herself and hella women after her, and I’d never take that away from her. Stans, y’all need to relax.” Unfortunately, the message didn’t seem to stop them as Chika was forced to once again address the issue on Wednesday.

“Yesterday i made a thread explaining that i don’t have any issues with an artist (after months of troll fans telling me to kill myself and randomly popping up everyday in my messages),” she wrote to begin a thread of tweets. “24 hours later, some of y’all are still here, proving my point. yikes.” Chika added, “Then have the audacity to try to gaslight me like ‘we never come for you, we never swarm your mentions, we uplift you, it’s not us.’ bro, scroll my TL from yesterday through the month of april. it’s always y’all. i addressed it so it can stop. but you’re still here.” She concluded her message in one last tweet, writing, “Leave me alone. it’s f*cking weird.”

You can view the tweets from Chika above.

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

Fresh off his stint as SNL host over the weekend, Tesla CEO and noted cryptocurrency proponent Elon Musk announced today that his company will no longer accept Bitcoin as payment for its vehicles — just 49 days since announcing Tesla would accept Bitcoin as payment — citing the environmental damage caused by Bitcoin mining as the main reason behind the decision.

“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Musk says in the statement. “Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”

You can read Musk’s full statement below:

Many had previously pointed out the seeming inherent hypocrisy of a clean energy/electric vehicle company accepting Bitcoin as payment. According to researchers, Bitcoin mining (we’re not even going to try to explain what it is but it involves lots of computers) uses up an amount of energy that’s “equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Argentina.”

That said, some crypto advocates like Mark Cuban believe that the long-term environmental effect of Bitcoin mining is perhaps a bit overblown.

Immediately following the announcement, the price of Bitcoin plummetted by about $2000, and Tesla’s stock price took a hit in after-hours trading as well.

Coincidentally, the price of Dogecoin also plummeted following the SNL appearance by the self-proclaimed “Dogefather” over the weekend. We have to hand it to Elon, singlehandedly causing the price of two global cryptocurrencies to freefall within the span of less than a week is an impressive feat.

There’s no telling how long it would take to read off a list of awards and accomplishments attached to Bob Dylan. From a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Peace Prize in Literature to multiple Grammys, the full list is far from brief. Now, fans of the legendary singer will be able to enjoy all that that and more in a new museum in honor of him. On Wednesday, The Bob Dylan Center opened to the public in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and according to the museum’s website, visitors can expect to see “more than 100,000 exclusive cultural treasures found in The Bob Dylan Archive” as they tour the three-story building.

The new museum includes handwritten lyrics for some of Dylan’s most popular songs, previously unreleased records and film performances, rare photographs, visual art, and priceless items that cover the more than six decades of his musical career. The new facility also features a studio from Dylan’s past that was recreated to allow visitors to experience “what it was like to be present at one of Dylan’s historic recording sessions.”

A highlight item at the museum is a display of the earliest-known recording of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” which Dylan created at a friend’s apartment in 1962. This version contains alternate lyrics than what’s heard on the final version of the song, which appears on his The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album. Fans can access a free download of the earlier recording through the museum’s website.