Month: September 2021

The Cavs were bad last year, full-stop. The roster was all over the place. (Remember Andre Drummond playing for the Cavs? Remember the handful of games Kevin Love played?) There were lots of losses. The end result was one of the worst records in the league and some lottery luck that allowed them to net Evan Mobley. And, sans a few tweaks, the roster is largely coming back for another round.

Roster:

Collin Sexton
Darius Garland
Isaac Okoro
Evan Mobley
Jarrett Allen
Kevin Love
Lauri Markkanen
Ricky Rubio
Dean Wade
Lamar Stevens
Cedi Osman
Dylan Windler
Brodric Thomas (two-way)
Tacko Fall (non-guaranteed)
Mfiondu Kaganbele (non-guaranteed)
Kevin Pangos
Denzel Valentine

Projected Vegas Win Total: 28.5

Biggest Additions: Evan Mobley, Lauri Markkanen

Cleveland’s biggest offseason moves came in the frontcourt, the same position group where they signed Jarrett Allen to a five-year, $100 million extension. That’s not conventional roster building in the current NBA.

Having said that, both moves should help. Mobley, the team’s top pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, has the potential to be the best player on the team in a few years and be the franchise-level talent the team has been missing. It’s just going to take time, however, and how Cleveland develops him is worth monitoring. As for Markkanen, he should offer three-point shooting and spacing that the team hasn’t been able to get from Kevin Love since Love signed his gigantic extension back in 2018.

Biggest Loss: Larry Nance Jr.

Markkanen is a better shooter than Nance, but Nance does everything else better. He’s a versatile defender, offers some solid secondary creation, and has more use as a roll threat/option at the rim.

J.B. Bickerstaff has some choices to make in regards to replacing Nance. Maybe he tries to use Mobley to cover some of the defensive responsibility, but that’s a lot to ask of a rookie from day one. It’ll also fall on Mobley (and perhaps Allen, who the team wants to add some passing and dribble hand-off responsibility to) to soak up some playmaking duty. Ricky Rubio should help, too. But it’s going to be an adjustment.

Biggest Question: How much of a step forward can this team take?

The Cavs are in a very tricky spot. Collin Sexton is about to head into restricted free agency. Darius Garland is extension eligible after this year. Allen and Markkanen just signed big deals and Love is still due more than $60 million for two more years. In short: There’s very little flexibility for the team to work with going forward if it commits to the players currently on the roster.

That likely means Cleveland has to improve and start winning games with the players currently on the roster and via internal improvement. It’s not all going to happen this year, but some kind of step forward needs to happen if the team is going to feel at all comfortable with the pieces in place.

What Makes This Season A Success: Competing for the play-in tournament

Cleveland disappointed last year. The Eastern Conference loaded up above them in a way the Cavs could not because they had no money to spend this offseason, so making the play-in tournament and getting a shot at the playoffs doesn’t feel too likely. But if Cleveland can get close to the 10th seed and be closer to that group of teams than in the bottom tier, that would be progress.

What Makes This Season A Failure: Another directionless year

The worst outcome for Cleveland this year is not learning anything about the players they have and again being one of the worst teams in the league. If that happens due to injury or due to youth – which seems possible considering most of the key pieces are 24 or younger — and they have another high lottery pick next year, it’s hard to know where the Cavs go from here. This is a franchise begging to get on a road to somewhere.

The Ben Simmons saga in Philadelphia, which seems to have a new twist every single day, has now gotten to a point where his current teammates are eager to get involved. There’s just one problem: Simmons has no interest in any sort of face-to-face meeting with a group that wants to come to him.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, a collection of Sixers players headed up by Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris made clear to Simmons that they wanted to fly out to Los Angeles and talk through his ongoing trade saga. Their efforts were met with resistance from Simmons, who apparently told them it wasn’t something he’d be interested in.

The core leaders on the 76ers — such as Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris and Matisse Thybulle — and most of the team were set to take a jet to see Simmons before being turned away, sources said. Multiple sources said Simmons didn’t want his teammates, some of whom he considers friends, to make the Philadelphia-to-Los Angeles commute out of courtesy because he won’t change his mind on wanting a trade.

Simmons and his camp have made clear to the Sixers that he has no intention of ever suiting up for the franchise again, to the point that he plans on not reporting to training camp when it begins early next week. Philly, through head coach Doc Rivers, has expressed that it is going to do whatever it can to bring him back, but it appears that any and all efforts would be for naught. Now, the question is whether or not any team will be able to meet the team’s sky high reported asking price, or if the Sixers would be willing to negotiate down to bring this saga to an end.

Drake and J. Cole have remained open about their friendship over the years. The two rappers have collaborated on a number of occasions, including on J. Cole’s “In The Morning” and Drake’s “Jodeci Freestyle.” More recently, Cole released “Heaven’s EP,” a freestyle that found him rapping over Drake’s “Pipe Down.” This freestyle became the center of a warm moment between the two, as Cole brought Drake out during the first stop of The Off-Season Tour in Miami on Friday night.

“I gotta say this ‘cause I don’t always wanna have a heartfelt moment when we’re on stage together,” Drake said after gracing the crowd with a performance of “Way 2 Sexy,” his No. 1 hit with Future and Young Thug. “You know, you did that ‘Pipe Down’ freestyle the other day. You was sayin’ in the freestyle that they gave you the bronze or whatever, me and Kendrick [Lamar]…I just want you to understand something. You are genuinely, without a doubt, one of the greatest rappers to ever touch a mic.”

The moment on the song that Drake is referring to finds Cole rapping, “Some people say that I’m running third, they threw the bronze at me / Behind Drake and Dot, yeah, them n****s is superstars to me.”

You can watch the rappers share the stage together in the videos above.

The House committee examining the events of Jan. 6 was almost snuffed in its crib. Republicans leaders tried to get die-hard Trumpists like Jim Jordan — who may have played a key role in the failed insurrection — to take part. Since then the majority of the party has not cooperated, even tried to sabotage it. But the committee seems to be rolling right along, and during the week Joe Biden made sure they could get their hands on some potentially damning documents.

As per The Hill, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that the president will not assert executive privilege as to the Trump-era documents they seek.

“We take this matter incredibly seriously,” Psaki told reporters. “The president has already concluded that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege and so we will respond promptly to these questions as they arise and certainly as they come up from Congress.”

She added, “We have been working closely with congressional committees and others as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on Jan. 6, an incredibly dark day in our democracy.”

This will likely enrage Trump, who has sworn that he’ll fight subpoenas for testimony from his former aides on “Executive Privilege and other grounds.” Like much of what he says, that may be a bluff. After all, he can’t assert executive privilege if he’s no longer president. The committee has also sent out subpoenas to such Trump allies as Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, and Steve Bannon, the latter who all but admitted he played a part in the Capitol riot.

(Via The Hill)

The Charlotte Hornets have been stuck in purgatory for a while. They’ve made the playoffs exactly three times since the Charlotte Bobcats brought basketball back to the city in 2004-05, with all of those spells ending in a first round defeat. That might remain the case at the end of the 2021-22 campaign, but right now, there’s hope in Charlotte that the Hornets can potentially be something going forward. Following a 33-39 season that looked promising before both Gordon Hayward and Rookie of the Year LaMelo Ball got hurt and ended with a loss in the play-in tournament, there looks to be an infrastructure in place for playoff basketball to no longer be an occasional one-off. This team’s job is to keep building that infrastructure, and if it ends with a first postseason berth since 2015-16, well, you can probably guess no one in the Queen City will be too unhappy.

Roster:

LaMelo Ball
James Bouknight
Miles Bridges
Vernon Carey
DJ Carton
Gordon Hayward
Wes Iwundu
Kai Jones
Arnoldas Kulboka (two-way)
Scottie Lewis (two-way)
Cody Martin
Jalen McDaniels
Kelly Oubre
Mason Plumlee
Nick Richards
Terry Rozier
Ish Smith
Xavier Sneed
JT Thor
PJ Washington

Projected Vegas Win Total: 36.5 wins

Biggest Addition: Mason Plumlee/Kai Jones

Charlotte’s center spot is a major, major question mark. The logic here appears to be that Plumlee, who has long been a respectable frontcourt option for a handful of teams, can keep things steady while Jones, the No. 19 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft and a freak athlete who needs polish, gets minutes on occasion and develops into the team’s center of the future. If that happens, the team’s biggest concern on the roster is solved. If it blows up, perhaps Charlotte will find itself in the market for someone barring Jalen McDaniels blowing up.

Biggest Loss: Devonte’ Graham

Graham blossomed into a really nice guard option during his time in Charlotte. He was able to parlay this into a good payday from the New Orleans Pelicans — after acquiring Graham in a three-team deal, the Pels rewarded him with a four-year, $47.3 million contract. The Hornets will assuredly miss his ability to hit threes and initiate the offense, although it’s a safe bet that they’ll be happy to give the lion’s share of these responsibilities to LaMelo Ball.

Biggest Question: Can LaMelo Ball avoid a sophomore slump?

Ball is that dude, the kind of potential building block for longterm success that the franchise just has not had. Even if he had not shot the ball better than anticipated, Ball’s total control of the game was so far beyond his years that you’d be totally in your right to wonder if he was a teenager. Some rookies have had better numbers — 15.7 points, 6.1 assists, 5.9 rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 28.8 minutes a night while connecting on 35.2 percent of his threes — but Ball was as impressive as any first-year player in recent history.

Now the question is whether or not he builds on this or falls into a dreaded sophomore slump. He is good enough that he can propel himself into All-Star consideration right now, but what happens if things don’t come as easy to him now that defenses are keying in on him, or he struggles with his shot, or any of the other million things we’ve seen with second-year players who can’t quite make their second act as memorable as the first? He’ll still be a good player, of course, but there’s a difference between that and what Ball can be.

What Makes This Season A Success: Taking the next step. Things went well for Charlotte last year, but now, it’s time to build on that and go from a team that barely makes the play-in tournament to, health permitting, a team that is firmly in the tournament, perhaps even pushing for an automatic playoff berth (although this would likely be a stretch with how deep the Eastern Conference is). Beyond the above question about Ball, guys like Miles Bridges and PJ Washington will get chances to more firmly entrench themselves as starters, while Gordon Hayward and Terry Rozier can continue their successful post-Boston careers by continuing to produce big numbers and, in Hayward’s case, staying healthy.

What Makes This Season A Failure: Stuck in neutral or going in reverse. How many times have we seen a team look feisty one year and then fail to do much the next year? Hell, how many times have we seen Charlotte do that? The good news is that this is a young, fun team, with a few veteran players sprinkled in that should be able to help fend off complacency. But more than any win-loss record, the Hornets have to be building towards something, and while there’s enough here to make them think they will, there’s no guarantee that happens.

When writer/director Jordan Peele revealed this past July that his upcoming horror film was going to be called Nope, Black people on social media couldn’t help but laugh their asses off. Not because the title was bad, but for so many other reasons — many of them having to do with how Black people have seen themselves portrayed in horror movies. The tropes are well known, from dying first to show what violence is about to be inflicted on the white characters to making totally unrealistic decisions that result in painful and gruesome deaths. If we see any character, particularly a Black character, who stays in a haunted house or goes outside in the dark (or downstairs to the basement) to investigate strange noises, we ask if that’s something that we would ever do. And the answer is always an emphatic “Nope!” That’s where the horror movie would end and the credits would start rolling.

Blade, on the other hand, throws the gauntlet down with its own version of “nope,” giving audiences something completely different in a way that still impacts genre films today more than two decades after its release. And it starts right at the beginning in the film’s opening scene, which takes place in a nightclub hidden in the meat-packing district that is filled to the brim with vampires dancing to loud, percussive techno music while happily bathing in human blood that’s raining down from the overhead sprinklers. Unfortunately for Heatseeker Dennis (Kenneth Johnson), the poor human who was lured to the club by his date, there’s nowhere to run. Every vampire wants to sink their fangs into him. All except one: Blade, the Daywalker.

The half-human/half-vampire has all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses of his vampire brethren. Played by Wesley Snipes who is dressed entirely in black leather, Blade shifts the horror paradigm with an extreme display, beating the absolute shit out of the bloodthirsty and homicidal killing machines, using everything in his vast repertoire: from his martial-arts skills, boomerang-like blades made of silver (which vampires are deathly allergic to), and good old-fashioned firepower with specialized ammo. The vampires we see Blade fighting are fast, tough, and absolutely ruthless, but the fact that Blade actually smiles when he’s about to do battle with them almost fills you with dread for what he’s about to do.

Snipes instantly makes it easy to cheer for his character: he has style, swagger, the ability to kick ass whenever necessary, and the zero-tolerance for bullshit that Richard Roundtree brought to the screen when he first appeared as Shaft in 1971, giving Black audiences a hero to cheer for who looked and sounded like them.

The film follows Blade and his partner-in-crime Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) who align themselves with hematologist Dr. Karen Jensen (N’Bushe Wright) after she is bitten by a vampire. They explain to her the existence of vampires and how they have both declared all-out war on “suckheads” for their own personal reasons: Whistler for the murder of his family, and Blade for being born a half-vampire after his mother was bitten while pregnant and died giving birth to him. The one vampire at the top of their hit list? Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), who has grown tired of older and more powerful pure-bloods and has focused on a ritual that would grant him the abilities of the blood god, La Magra, making him the most powerful vampire of all.

Like The Crow, which was released in theaters four years earlier, Blade earned its R rating for its dark, intense, and incredibly violent approach to comic-book films. (Its portrayal of a Los Angeles that is overrun with vampires, as well as humans willing to work for them also seems to have inspired the version of L.A. that was seen on Angel, the spin-off of The WB’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer.) Their success at the box office, along with that of X-Men in 2000, Blade 2 in 2002, and X2 in 2003, made Hollywood realize that comic book films could still be profitable and popular when done right, following the critical downturn in response to the Batman franchise, and unsuccessful attempts at building franchises around other lesser-known comic book properties. That realization would eventually help usher in the creation of the unstoppable juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with Iron Man in 2008.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe may receive much of the credit for comic-book movies being as popular as they are now (especially since these movies are a lot more mainstream and family-friendly in comparison), but the influence that Blade has had still deserves acknowledgment. It gave Black comic-book fans a superhero who was worth cheering for when there were barely any Black superheroes to be seen onscreen. And it made audiences want to see more Black and brown characters in horror and sci-fi as the lead who get to fight back and even kill the monsters.

John Boyega in Attack The Block, Ice Cube as Desolation in Ghosts of Mars, Naomie Harris in 28 Days Later, Danai Gurira on AMC’s The Walking Dead (before she kicked ass in Black Panther), Sennia Nanua in The Girl with All The Gifts, the young protagonists of Vampires vs. The Bronx, and Y’Lan Noel in The First Purge all owe something to Blade. Busta Rhymes even got to say “Trick or treat, motherf-cka!” to Michael Myers while roundhouse-kicking him from pillar to post in Halloween: Resurrection. And of course, the films of Jordan Peele, where we see Daniel Kaluuya up against a racist white family in Get Out, and Lupita Nyong’o going up against her doppelganger in Us. (As a bonus, the Black characters in Peele’s films are beautifully dark-skinned, pushing back against the “But Not Too Black” trope that often favors light-skinned Black actors, but that’s another rant for another day.)

And though credit is certainly due to the late Duane Jones and to Ken Foree for their lead roles in the late George A. Romero’s classic horror films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead in showing that Black characters are fully capable of fighting back against the supernatural, it is Blade who more recently reminded audiences of this, and who partly inspired all of the aforementioned Black characters in film and on television who have followed in his footsteps.

Not all of these characters have appeared in films and television shows created by Black writers and directors, due to Hollywood being Hollywood. Blade, the character, was created by two white men. The film was written and directed by two white men, who fortunately didn’t listen to the studio when asked if the character could be played by a white actor instead. But there has been some progress with films like Sweetheart, television series like Lovecraft Country, and more Black superheroes getting their time to shine in films like Black Panther, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Blade with Mahershala Ali taking over the role.

Hopefully, thanks to Blade and what it was able to accomplish, the wheel will continue to turn much faster so that Black and brown fans of horror and sci-fi can continue to be scared, thrilled, and entertained like everyone else — and by storytellers who look and sound like they do.

Macy’s and Girls Inc. believe that all girls deserve to be safe, supported, and valued. However, racial disparities continue to exist for young people when it comes to education levels, employment, and opportunities for growth. Add to that the gender divide, and it’s clear to see why it’s important for girls of color to have access to mentors who can equip them with the tools needed to navigate gender, economic, and social barriers.

Anissa Rivera is one of those mentors. Rivera is a recent Program Manager at the Long Island affiliate of Girls Inc., a nonprofit focusing on the holistic development of girls ages 5-18. The goal of the organization is to provide a safe space for girls to develop long-lasting mentoring relationships and build the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to thrive now and as adults.

Rivera spent years of her career working within the themes of self and community empowerment with young people — encouraging them to tap into their full potential. Her passion for youth development and female empowerment eventually led her to Girls Inc., where she served as an agent of positive change helping to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold.

Photo courtesy of Macy’s

Inspiring young women from all backgrounds is why Macy’s has continued to partner with Girls Inc. for the second year in a row. The partnership will support mentoring programming that offers girls career readiness, college preparation, financial literacy, and more. Last year, Macy’s raised over $1.3M for Girls Inc. in support of this program along with their Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programming for more than 26,000 girls. Studies show that girls who participated are more likely than their peers to enjoy math and science, score higher on standardized math tests, and be more equipped for college and campus life.

Thanks to mentors like Rivera, girls across the country have the tools they need to excel in school and the confidence to change the world. With your help, we can give even more girls the opportunity to rise up. Throughout September 2021, customers can round up their in-store purchases or donate online to support Girls Inc. at Macys.com/MacysGives.

Who runs the world? Girls!

We’re living in a brave and, of course, uncertain world. That goes for movies, too. The long-held tradition — that major movies play movie theaters first, then get released to home video later — has finally been eroding. During the pandemic, some, but not all, studios threw up their hands and started doing some form of day-and-date releasing in both theaters and on streamers. But one franchise has stood its ground: The Bond movies, like the forthcoming No Time to Die, will never go the Warner Bros. route.

As per Deadline, series producer Barbara Broccoli — whose father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, was there from the first theatrical Bond movie, 1962’s Dr. No — commented on the fact that the franchise was semi-recently sold to Amazon. There was fear that one of the biggest and splashiest film series would wind up dumped on some streamer going forward. Not so, she says.

“We focused on making the films for theatrical release,” Broccoli told Sky. “I think that’s our position. [Amazon] certainly have told us that the films will be theatrical films in the future. And we’ll see what happens.”

Broccoli also talked about how she and her fellow producers “held their nerve” throughout the pandemic, refusing to release No Time to Die, the next installment, onto any streamers, as others studios did with their wares. Indeed, the film, the 25th in the franchise, was originally supposed to be released in April of 2020. Now it’s dropping, in America at least, on October 8, about a year and a half later.

(Via Deadline)

It’s been about three-quarters of a year since Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. And it’s clear he wants back on. The former president is in the midst of suing the social media giant, which was his favorite such service, and last week his lawyers issued a court filing arguing that he should be let back on for two reason: he used to be the leader of the free world, and, you know, tweeting is “addictive.”

As per The Hill, the filing makes an extraordinary argument: that the terms of service, which he repeatedly violated, did not apply to him when he was booted because at the time he was President of the United States. It claims he “repeatedly used his account to report to the Citizens of the United States on virtually every aspect of Presidential activity” and that it was “a key channel for official communication.”

Ignoring that Trump often used it to air petty grievances, the filing also makes this claim: “One thing is undeniably clear in this case: Plaintiff’s account was a government account, and not a private one when he was censored,” Trump’s lawyers said in the filing.

The filing later argues that Twitter is an “addictive” service, and intentionally so, and that any seasoned user, like Trump, will blindly agree to the terms of service without reading the fine print.

Trump’s lawyers are also fighting to keep the case in Florida, where he currently resides, to California, where Twitter lives. Twitter’s terms of service indicate that all lawsuits will be argued in California. But there’s a good chance Trump’s team wants to keep it in Florida, because there that’s where far more Trump-friendly judges reside.

The former president was booted from Twitter mere days after the Capitol riots, which he arguably (or maybe not so arguably) helped foment.

(Via The Hill)

The early slate in the world of college football is headlined by what should be one of the grossest games of the year. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Wisconsin Badgers are headed to Chicago for a neutral site game at Wrigley Field that will pit two tough, physical, hard-nosed teams against one another in the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. Elsewhere, the SEC’s headliner this week is a fun one, as the perpetually on the cusp of breaking out Texas A+M Aggies are on the way to Fayetteville for a matchup with one of the more surprising teams of the season thus far, Arkansas.

Here’s everything slated to kick off during the early window this week. All times EST:

#2 Georgia vs. Vanderbilt, 12:00 PM, SEC Network

Villanova vs. #6 Penn State, 12:00 PM, Big Ten Network

#12 Notre Dame vs. #18 Wisconsin, 12:00 PM, FOX

LSU vs. Mississippi State, 12:00 PM, ESPN

Missouri vs. Boston College, 12:00 PM, ESPN2

Florida International vs. Central Michigan, 12:00 PM, ESPN+

New Hampshire vs. Pittsburgh, 12:00 PM, ESPN+

Richmond vs. Virginia Tech, 12:00 PM, ACC Network

Bowling Green vs. Minnesota, 12:00 PM, ESPNU

Ohio vs. Northwestern, 12:00 PM, Big Ten Network

SMU vs. TCU, 12:00 PM, FS1

Texas Tech vs. Texas, 12:00 PM, ABC

Wagner vs. Temple, 12:00 PM, ESPN+

Miami (OH) vs. Army, 12:00 PM, CBS Sports Network

Boise State vs. Utah State, 12:00 PM, CBS

Central Connecticut vs. Miami, 12:30 PM, ESPN3

UMass vs. #17 Coastal Carolina, 1:00 PM, ESPN+

San José State vs. Western Michigan, 2:00 PM, ESPN+

Toledo vs. Ball State, 2:00 PM, ESPN+

Texas State vs. Eastern Michigan, 2:00 PM, ESPN+

Maine vs. Northern Illinois, 2:30 PM, ESPN3

Washington State vs. Utah, 2:30 PM, Pac-12 Network

Colorado State vs. #5 Iowa, 3:30 PM, FS1

#7 Texas A+M vs. #16 Arkansas, 3:30 PM, CBS

#9 Clemson vs. NC State, 3:30 PM, ESPN

#14 Iowa State vs. Baylor, 3:30 PM, FOX

Rutgers vs. #19 Michigan, 3:30 PM, ABC

UTSA vs. Memphis, 3:30 PM, ESPNU

Louisville vs. Florida State, 3:30 PM, ESPN2

Illinois vs. Purdue, 3:30 PM, Big Ten Network

Kent State vs. Maryland, 3:30 PM, Big Ten Network

Wyoming vs. UConn, 3:30 PM, CBS Sports Network

Towson vs. San Diego State, 3:30 PM, Stadium

Georgia State vs. #23 Auburn, 4:00 PM, SEC Network

Kansas vs. Duke, 4:00 PM, ACC Network

Arkansas State vs. Tulsa, 5:00 PM, ESPN+