Month: October 2021

As the NBA season approaches and training camps get underway, we’ll be taking a look at the player on each team that holds the key to unlocking their potential, starting in Atlanta with third-year forward De’Andre Hunter.

Hunter was on his way to a breakout sophomore campaign, averaging 15 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game on 48.4/32.6/85.9 shooting, but knee issues plagued him all season, limiting him to 23 games in the regular season and a torn meniscus ended his first postseason after the first round against the Knicks. Without Hunter, the Hawks surprised many by upsetting the Sixers to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, pushing the eventual NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks to six games.

The Hawks will look much the same this coming season, led by Trae Young and John Collins, with veterans Clint Capela, Danilo Gallinari, and Bogdan Bogdanovic all back for another go around. Most of Atlanta’s offseason moves this summer were about bolstering depth, which means top-level improvement needs to come from internal development of their young stars and better health, as well. Hunter will be the biggest addition to the roster we saw in the Conference Finals — along with Bogdanovic being back at full strength — and his two-way ability has the potential to keep the Hawks in the conversation of East contenders.

Hunter’s impact defensively is tremendous. In 678 minutes (an admittedly small sample), the Hawks had a defensive rating of 105.9, while without him (a much larger 2,803 minutes) the team’s defensive rating was 113.0. Even factoring the noise of on/off defensive rating, the Hawks are significantly better when he’s on the floor thanks to his considerable gifts as an on and off ball defender, with versatility to guard 2-4. Adding him back into the lineup will, if nothing else, be a boost defensively, but it’s on the offensive end, where Atlanta is already terrific, that Hunter has the biggest questions.

Prior to the injury, Hunter was shooting 36.6 percent from three in the first 18 games of the season (his 1-of-13 stretch in the last five games of the regular season brought his percentage down considerably) and he was emerging as more of an on-ball threat in his second season. If he can sustain that back at full strength, he makes the Hawks a far more dangerous, balanced team no matter who he is paired with on the wing between Bogdanovic and Kevin Huerter, who had a breakout of his own in the postseason.

The Hawks have a chance to be the third best team in the East next season, as there is a clear top two in Brooklyn and Milwaukee, but ample questions beyond that considering the Ben Simmons situation in Philadelphia (partially caused by the Hawks). If they are going to get there and have a chance at threatening either of those two top dogs, Hunter will need to not just sustain what he did at the start of last year, but continue growing as a player, something that’s very much in play for the third-year forward.

When we first met Jonah Hill—really met Jonah Hill—he was a twenty-something up-and-comer starring in 2007’s Superbad, arguably one of the best comedies of the past 20 years. Now he’s a 37-year-old actor, writer, producer, and director who has worked some of Hollywood’s biggest names—Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, and Quentin Tarantino among them. He’s also been nominated for two Academy Awards. Yet all people ever seem to want to talk about is Hill’s body and his weight, and he’s really f*cking sick of it.

On Wednesday, Hill took to Instagram to post a very simple request: please stop making his body a topic of conversation. “I know you mean well,” the actor wrote, “but I kindly ask that you not comment on my body. Good or bad I want to politely let you know it’s not helpful and doesn’t feel good. Much respect.”

It’s a simple message, but a powerful one that immediately found support among his fans—famous and otherwise. Hill’s sister, Impeachment: American Crime Story star Beanie Feldstein, was among the first to show support for his message, replying: THATS MY BROTHER

As Complex reported, Hill’s post happened shortly after US Magazine posted a story titled “Jonah Hill Shows Off Dramatic Weight Loss: See the Before and After Pictures.” (No, we didn’t link to it—nor should you.) The article was cobbled together with photos and quotes taken from other interviews Hill has done over the years, but not with his direct participation. And for good reason: Hill has been very forthright that he has struggled with body issues over the years, and how that has affected his own self-view.

While appearing on Ellen in 2018, Hill offered some insight into the challenges he has faced, noting:

“I think everybody has a version of themselves—I call it a snapshot—at some point in life, trying to hide from the world. Even if you get success or grow up or become good-looking or whatever … you kind of carry some part of that with you. For me, it’s definitely being like this 14-year-old kid, being overweight, wanting to fit in with these skaters and hip-hop kids, and just feeling lonely and maybe not understanding my own worth.”

Whether it’s one’s body or something else, it’s hard to imagine there isn’t a person reading this who can’t relate to the idea of still viewing yourself as you were at a certain time in life—and how damaging it could be to have strangers keep reminding you of that image and talking about it—especially when you’ve achieved so much at such a young age. Frankly, even writing about Jonah Hill asking people to stop talking about his body feels like a betrayal of that very message. So let’s just leave it at that.

(Via Complex)

Kehlani announced her upcoming album Blue Water Road in a highly conceptual way. She unveiled the LP’s title with an eerie trailer, which teases a winter release date. The singer’s album announcement was different from how she’s publicized projects in the past, but that’s because this LP is apparently “vastly different” from what she’s written before.

Kehlani discussed her different direction in Rolling Stone‘s Musicians On Musicians series in an interview with Alicia Keys. The singer even notes that she wouldn’t put it in the same genre as her other albums:

“I’m about to drop music that, to me, feels vastly different than anything I’ve ever created. I wouldn’t call it the same genre sonically as I’ve done before. And I’m scared about it because I’m like, ‘Y’all may receive it and just feel like Kehlani is dropping another project.’ And to me, I’m making a pivot creatively because it was something I always wanted to do with people I always wanted to do it with.”

The singer went on to note that she’s nervous to see people’s reactions to the project, but hopes to take the feedback in stride. “I guess I just be nervous, but I had to also stop psyching myself out,” she continued. “I try to look from this big bird’s-eye view of like, ‘Well, I’m probably going to drop like five more albums. I’m going to have this experience a bunch of more times, don’t freak out, be like water, let it come out. Let people think whatever they think.’ I try to always come back to the emotion that I felt when I was creating it.”

Read Rolling Stone‘s full Musicians On Musicians profile with Kehlani and Alicia Keys here.

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

Before Drake was an international superstar or a Certified Lover Boy, he was Aubrey Graham, an ensemble member on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. This fact has been brought up as a mark against him, since the prevailing belief at the time he started his rap career was that rappers should come from hardscrabble beginnings and work their way up from nothing (this was never accurate, but try telling that to the folks who still hate Drake over it to this day).

Apparently, Drake foresaw some of this attitude even as he appeared on the show, resisting a development for his character Jimmy that came to define the role — as well as saddle Drake with one of his most enduring, demeaning nicknames, “Wheelchair Jimmy.” In a two-part season-four episode about the effects of bullying as well as touching on a new violent trend in then-current events, a character named Rick, fed up with mistreatment from his classmates, brings a gun to school and shoots Jimmy in the back as he runs away. Jimmy spends the next several seasons in a wheelchair. Drake, however, was initially adamant that his character not be paralyzed — mainly because of how he thought his rapper friends and fans might interpret the move.

In a new oral history of Degrassi for AVClub, the show’s writer James Hurst explains how the show’s staff learned of Drake’s apprehension… as well as how he convinced the burgeoning star to accept the change:

There was a letter from a law firm in Toronto, and it was from Aubrey. It was an odd letter that said, “Aubrey Graham will not return to Degrassi season six as Jimmy Brooks unless his injury is healed, and he’s out of the wheelchair.” I said, “Get him down here.” He came in and was like, “What letter? I don’t know about that.” And I said, “All right, I understand. But how do you feel about the wheelchair?” He’s like, “All my friends in the rap game say I’m soft because I’m in a wheelchair.” And I said, “Well, tell your friends in the rap game that you got shot. How much harder can you get? You got shot, and you’re in a wheelchair.” He was like, “Yeah, yeah.” He was so nice and apologetic about everything. He instantly backed down. I was very passionate about it, and I said, “Aubrey, there’s some kid somewhere in a wheelchair, who’s completely ignored, who’s never on television, never gets represented.” I need you to represent this person. You’re the coolest kid on the show, and you can say there’s nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair.”

Drake apparently got over it, and over the “Wheelchair Jimmy” appellation, eventually incorporating it as a self-deprecating sobriquet. And while he never quite shook off the “soft” designation, he learned to flip every derogatory assessment of himself from fans into a positive, becoming a one-man meme machine whose goofy sense of humor serves him in good stead to this day. Just check out his video for “Way 2 Sexy.”

You can read the full Degrassi oral history over on AV Club.

Netflix finds itself on the verge of an employee walkout over its handling of Dave Chappelle‘s latest comedy special, The Closer, which contains both transphobic and homophobic statements by the comedian. Meanwhile, Netflix’s LGBTQ Twitter account has broken its silence on the matter.

On Wednesday evening, the Most Twitter handle, which is “the home of Netflix’s LGBTQ+ storytelling,” fired off a short thread apologizing for not posting as the Chappelle controversy continued to dominate headlines. While the thread offered little in the way of details on conversations that are happening behind the scenes, it promised followers that the queer and trans employees who run the account are reading every comment and citing them during internal discussions:

sorry we haven’t been posting, this week f*cking sucks

To be clear: As the queer and trans people who run this account, you can imagine that the last couple of weeks have been hard. We can’t always control what goes on screen. What we can control is what we create here, and the POV we bring to internal conversations.

We have been reading all of your comments and using them to continue advocating for bigger and better queer representation.

ok you can go back to yelling at us now

Despite a revolt growing inside his company, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos continues to defend streaming the new Chappelle special, which he defended for a second time amidst news of a walkout. According to Sarandos, he disagrees that content on screen translates to “real-world harm,” so he sees no issue with displaying Chappelle’s anti-trans views.

“Adults can watch violence, assault and abuse – or enjoy shocking stand-up comedy – without it causing them to harm others,” he said in a company-wide statement.

(Via Most on Twitter)

While promoting his upcoming role in the badass western, The Harder They Fall, Idris Elba has opened up about his experience of being one of the very first celebs to catch COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic. Shortly after revealing that he and his wife tested positive, Elba was inundated with conspiracy theories, including some with extremely dangerous racial undertones. Despite putting on a strong front and swiftly smacking down the wild accusations as soon as they came across his radar, the actor recently revealed that the experience took a toll on him privately. Via Esquire:

“The good favor that some people in the public eye get–which I definitely benefit from–was gone in an instant. In an instant. People that loved me one moment absolutely f*cking hated me the next. It was like, ‘You’re fake; you’re being paid.’ No one really believed. It was really a tough time. So where I am now, you’re looking at a man that’s very thankful. You’re looking at a man that’s very reflective of what’s happened over the last eighteen months. You’re looking at a man that doesn’t really have time to waste on pretending to be anything but what I am. Who I am and what I am.”

Elba is referencing a viral conspiracy at the time where celebrities were accused of being paid to pretend they tested positive for COVID-19 to boost the perception that the pandemic is real, which it, of course, was. What was so surreal about the theory is that other celebrities were spreading it, which clearly was frustrating for Elba. Nothing like having your colleagues turn around and accuse of you faking a potentially fatal illness. That can’t be great.

(Via Esquire)

The past few years have really been something, but consider this, too: it’s been nearly six years since poor Steve Harvey rustled up the biggest mistake in Miss Universe history, and he transformed a usually dull event into a total disaster. That would be the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, which saw him endure the longest three seconds of his career while he realized that he’d announced the wrong winner. Well, Harvey has overcome this flub, and his TV career is even hotter these days. He went back to the Miss Universe pageant without too much incident and did the talk show hosting thing, and generally continues to go about his business. That includes deciding to pose a slick-looking photo of him looking sharp, and he provided zero context, simply the image of him gazing nonchalantly into the distance.

The pose had an effect, alright. And perhaps the post-and-run attitude contributed as well, but people immediately whipped out their Photoshopping tools and dug in with relish. Soon enough, Steve Harvey was transformed into anime characters, Captain America, Batman, you name it. And “someone’s aunty”? Sure. It’s rare these days to see people really enjoy themselves with some harmless fun online, and it felt like the good ol’ days of the Internet. Please enjoy.

And yes, of course someone couldn’t resist going all Squid Game up in Steve Harvey’s business. It is 2021, after all!

Hey, folks, so the preseason is almost over, which means teams are running their “dress rehearsal” games before the regular season. These are the rare spots where starters play real minutes in the preseason and try and ramp up the intensity and effort to that of an actual game. Sometimes those can get ugly if the other team is not in dress rehearsal mode — see Mavs-Hornets from Wednesday night — but they do offer us the best glimpse at what a team might actually look like come regular season time.

Wednesday night was that game for the Bucks, as they played host to the Jazz and let their starters get some extended burn into the third quarter. That meant more Giannis than we’ve seen to this point in the preseason, and one thing in particular stood out to everyone watching: his jump shot.

For years, the conversation about Giannis has been how if he can add a jumper, he’ll become unstoppable. That had finally quieted down after he won a title and Finals MVP last year, so naturally he showed up to camp this year with a reworked jump shot that seems like it might finally deliver us that final form of Giannis on the offensive end. Now, he’s not suddenly Steph Curry out here, but the rhythm of his new shot and apparent comfort with his tweaked form is quite notable from the midrange and from deep.

I am still skeptical that a Giannis three-point revolution is coming, but it’s the midrange that is most intriguing to me. He added the little post-fade counter last year, taking advantage of how opponents cede ground until just outside the restricted area where they wall up and try to draw charges and disrupt layup attempts. That leaner is still in his bag, but it appears he’s added a straight pull-up to his arsenal from the free throw line extended area, which is particularly terrifying. That is a shot he can get at literally any time off the dribble, because defenses have to be sinking back due to the ground he can cover with one stride.

He still has some of the same ticks to his jumper, like looking down at the floor and letting the ball sit in his left hand before entering his shooting motion, but it’s much less pronounced and looks significantly more rhythmic now. For someone who already has a lot of space to get his shot off, he doesn’t need a quick release, but he did need to take some of the hesitation out of his form. As for the shot itself, he just looks a bit more natural, with less bend and dip of his upper body, rising to a high point and letting it fly at a spot that is, effectively, unblockable for the majority of the NBA.

It’s the preseason, so all necessary caveats of small samples and a lack of pressure apply here, but it is notable how much more comfortable and smooth all of this looks for Giannis. We’re mere months removed from a championship run and he appears to have, once again, gone into the lab and upgraded his game for the defense of that title.

In the new promo spot for Lyft, Atlanta rapper Young Thug surprises a number of Lyft drivers, playing them songs from his upcoming album, Punk. In the opening of the clip, Thug shows off his sense of humor, reproducing the Twitter favorite meme of Thug in the studio with Lil Durk before heading outside to catch his ride. The various drivers are all shocked and amazed to find that their rider is the world-famous rapper, with one saying, “Some people call you the greatest. I’m starting to see why.”

In the press release for the promo, Thug explains, “In a car, you get to hear sounds you wouldn’t hear if you were in a studio, or in a club, or on stage. When you record a slap, you’re like, we got to go hear this in the car.” Naturally, in addition to promoting both Lyft and Punk, the brand partnership benefits fans, too: Riders will get 10% off Young Thug merch and music from the rapper’s online shop using the promo code “PUNKLYFT.” Also, while using the app, entering the promo code “YOUNGTHUG” in the rewards tab will unlock “SP5DER Mode,” offering Young Thug-themed icons.

Thug’s rollout for Punk, which drops this Friday, October 15 via YSL and Atlantic, has also included the purchase of 100 acres of land for a Slime City theme park, a Tiny Desk Concert with Travis Barker, and the slippery single, “Tick Tock.” He also played a trio of new songs at the Givenchy Paris Fashion Week show.