Month: October 2021

PJ Tucker had a winding path to sticking in the NBA. He was a second round pick in the 2006 NBA Draft by the Raptors, appearing in 17 games before leaving the league to play overseas until an eventual return to the NBA in 2012.

Appearing on The Old Man & The Three Podcast, Tucker got into why ending up in Toronto was a bad spot for him and how he didn’t help his own cause with how he handled it. Talking to hosts JJ Redick and Tommy Alter, Tucker noted how he was drafted on a team that already had a lot of wings and didn’t have the infrastructure to help him acclimate to the league.

“Nobody was helping me, right?,” Tucker said. “It was like I was competition. And I didn’t play, so that was tough for me not really getting a chance to play because because coming from college you’re an All-American, you’re all these things and you go to the NBA think about what you’re going to do here and then you don’t. I did not react to that well. I didn’t. I was terrible.”

“I was really bad,” Tucker continued. “I would show up right before practice. I was just doing whatever I wanted. I’m not playing, I don’t care not knowing that they’ll cut you and let you go. It’s funny now because I try to help so many of the young guys when I see them acting like me I’ll be all over ’em, not letting them go down that path.”

Tucker went on to detail getting called into a meeting by Toronto’s brass after returning from a G League (then the D-League) stint just as the NBA playoffs were about to start. He recounted everyone sitting in there from the organization, including the general manager, team president and head coach. In the meeting, they showed him clips of him before, during and after the game just on the bench.

“To this day, it makes me sick to my stomach,” Tucker said. He noted that it wasn’t because of anything the Raptors did — it was all about he acted and conducted himself.

“That was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life,” he said. “It’s probably why I’ve never told this story because, like, I couldn’t tell my mom that. Like, no. Like, come on. Nobody can judge me harder than myself and that was the first time I’ve ever seen myself in that light.”

Tucker finished by saying that it wasn’t intentional and went back to the reality that it wasn’t an environment that was right for him as he tried to find his place in the NBA.

“I didn’t have vets on the team, guys over there grabbing me like how we do younger guys now,” he said. “If I had someone, maybe I wouldn’t have. But I didn’t know because nobody told me. It just wasn’t like that.”

Speculation about Grammy voting and nominations is at a all all-time high right now, as early ballots are being submitted and fans are left to wonder how the awards will shake out this year. Over the last decade or so, the backlash against seemingly-random nominations and wins that are completely out of step with critical and commercial success has grown. Artists like The Weeknd have opted not to submit their work to the Recording Academy at all, and one of the most popular rappers in the world, Drake, has also been vocal about his disappointment with the selections in the past. So fans were interested to see what, if anything, he would submit off this year’s Certified Lover Boy, and the answer is? None of the big categories for any single track, like Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year.

According to a report from Variety, Drizzy submitted “Way 2 Sexy” for best rap performance, “Girls Want Girls” for best melodic rap performance, and “No Friends in the Industry” for best rap song. He also submitted Certified Lover Boy for Album Of The Year, so he’s still in the game for that big award, just not the song ones. Check out more of Variety‘s unpacking of Grammy submissions process here.

Joakim Noah is a Chicago Bulls franchise legend and he received a hero’s welcome in his return to Chicago on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Noah was named a franchise ambassador by the Bulls with the team announcing plans to honor him at tonight’s game. With former teammates with Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Carlos Boozer, and Brad Miller with him in the stands, the Bulls took a moment to honor Noah in-game in front of the United Center crowd.

As the video shows, Rose took a moment to gesture towards Noah, as did Gibson. Thibodeau, meanwhile, looked very much like Thibodeau in seemingly not being aware of what was going on.

https://twitter.com/cwmwrites/status/145389263525770854

The Bulls also created a tribute video for Noah, featuring comments from Rose, Thibodeau, Kirk Hinrich and others that aired in arena.

Perhaps the coolest part about this, though, is that it came on a night where the Bulls were hosting a Knicks team that is coached by Tom Thibodeau (Noah’s coach in Chicago when he was at his apex) and features former teammates in Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson. Noah also played for the Knicks, spending two years in New York before finishing out his career with stints with the Grizzlies and Clippers.

According to a report from People, Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik’s relationship has ended rather dramatically. Though the young couple have been through ups and downs in the public eye before, the pair now share a child, Khai, together, and have been going strong for the last few years. A recent incident that involved Zayn arguing with Gigi’s mother, Yolanda, seems to have been the catalyst for a real break between the co-parents.

TMZ reported earlier today that Yolanda was considering filing a police report against Zayn because of an incident where he “struck” her. Malik categorically denied the story telling TMZ: “I adamantly deny striking Yolanda Hadid and for the sake of my daughter I decline to give any further details and I hope that Yolanda will reconsider her false allegations and move towards healing these family issues in private.”

He also shared a lengthy statement on Twitter about the matter:

“As you all know I am a private person and I very much want to create a safe and private space for my daughter to grow up in. A place where private family matters aren’t thrown on the world stage for all to poke and pick apart. In an effort to protect that space for her I agreed to not contest claims arising from an argument I had with a family member of my partner’s who entered our home while my pattern was away several weeks ago. This was and still should be a private matter but it seems for now there is divisiveness and despite my efforts to restore us to a peaceful family environment that will allow for me to co-parent my daughter in a manner in which she deserves, this has been “leaked” to the press. I am hopeful though for healing for all involved with the harsh words shared and more importantly I remain vigilant to protect Khai and give her the privacy she deserves.”

Gigi released a short statement through her rep to E! news: “Gigi is solely focused on the best for Khai. She asks for privacy during this time.”

Phew. Anyone who has watched Yolanda on Housewives has a lot of thoughts right now… best of luck to Zayn and Gigi to keep a peaceful co-parenting situation going.

Olivia Rodrigo has plenty of punk-rock and ferocity in her pop songs, and that might be due to hearing some unexpected music growing up. The teen prodigy appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week to talk all things Sour, and what she’s been up to during a pretty hectic year. After letting fans know about the bizarre gift that President Biden gave her when she visited the White House, she also filled everyone in on some Rodrigo family knowledge. When Kimmel asked Olivia about whether her mother is concerned when she includes curse words in her songs, the world got a funny bit of information about Mrs. Rodrigo. Apparently, she loves listening to death metal and punk, which suddenly makes Olivia’s cursing seem far more restrained.

“My mom’s actually really funny though, my mom is like a third grade teacher from the midwest,” Olivia begins, “And she’s very sweet, but her favorite music is like death metal and punk music. She’s the sweetest woman, and she’ll turn on like Motorhead. She has some edge to her. I remember being really young and she’d wake me up and she’d put a record on, and she’d put on a Motorhead record to like wake me up.”

So don’t be surprised if we get an “Ace Of Spades” cover from Olivia on LP number two. Watch the whole interview with Kimmel above.

The final Daniel Craig film in the James Bond canon is still making an impact in theaters, and one No Time To Die‘s biggest stars may have their next action project already lined up. Ana de Armas, who stole the show in the oft-delayed release, may have landed herself a spot in another big action series.

As Deadline revealed on Thursday, Ana de Armas is “in talks” to headline Ballerina, a John Wick-universe spinoff project as part of that franchise’s big expansion.

Knives Out and No Time To Die star Ana de Armas is in talks to take the lead role in anticipated John Wick spinoff Ballerina, about a young female assassin who seeks revenge against the people who killed her family.

The character made a fleeting appearance in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum as a ballerina who is also training to be an assassin.

As we previously revealed, Len Wiseman (Underworld) is aboard to direct the action-thriller, whose script comes from Shay Hatten, known for Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

De Armas taking the title spot here would certainly be intriguing for action movie fans who loved her work in No Time To Die, as many have raved about her action sequence as a highlight of the movie. The report mentions speculation about who else may appear in the film, including Keanu Reeves as Wick himself. But as far as potential anchors for action franchises go, there’s no hotter name in Hollywood right now.

[via Deadline]

The Oculus Quest is considered to be one of the best VR headsets available. It has some of the coolest technology behind it, and for gamers, it has a rather large library of VR games. The problem: With Facebook owning Oculus, it became a requirement to have a Facebook account to log in and use it.

Thankfully, that feature is not going to last much longer. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during Thursday’s Facebook Live event that they would be phasing out the requirement. Instead, they will be looking at other means to log in. (H/t PC Gamer)

“As we’ve focused more on work, and frankly as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re working on making it so you can log in into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his keynote. “We’re starting to test support for work accounts soon, and we’re working on making a broader shift here, within the next year.”

VR is one of those cool technologies in gaming that we’re starting to see more companies try to get creative with. Games such as Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx, for example, are both extremely popular games among VR players. It’s a technology fresh for new ideas with the potential to make some extremely cool games. Now, more people can embrace these new experiences without the need of a Facebook account.

Call of Duty is one of the world’s most popular video game franchises. The first-person military shooter series sells millions of copies yearly, and a wide legion of fans approach each game with heavy anticipation. Unfortunately for them, anyone that has tried to keep up with CoD over the years has found it more difficult to play all of its games. Ever since Modern Warfare and Warzone released, the series has become infamous for ridiculously large file sizes. At one point, a standard 500gb PlayStation 4 was unable to hold the three most recent CoD games on a single console.

It makes sense why these games are so huge. The amount of detail that goes into them, and how big games like Warzone are, contributes to that huge download file. Thankfully, it seems like the developers of the franchise are starting to find ways around this to make games that are at least slightly smaller. The upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard is still going to be a sizable game compared to the average game’s download size, but in comparison to other Call of Duty games it’s going to be smaller.

Details about download size and other aspects of the upcoming game are on CoD’s blog.

Due to new on-demand texture streaming tech, Vanguard’s install size at launch will be significantly below that of previous Call of Duty releases – up to 30% – 50%+ of a file size difference on next-gen console and PC.

By console, these are the estimated file sizes needed to install Vanguard at launch, including via pre-load, as well as the disk space needed to play the game:

PlayStation 5: 64.13 GB Download | 89.84 GB Required Space

PlayStation 4: 54.65 GB Download | 93.12 GB Required Space

Xbox Series X |S: 61 GB Download | 61 GB Required Space

Xbox One: 56.6 GB Download | 56.6 GB Required Space

Considering that Black Ops Cold War managed to push over 100 GB on some platforms and a patch was necessary to reduce Warzone’s size we should all be pretty happy to see that all of these console sizes are starting off below 100GB. Hopefully future patches don’t push them further than that.

One thing that does stand out of course is how PlayStation is well above the Xbox in terms of necessary space. This is because of the PlayStation-only issue where the console requires players have more space on their console before downloading a game. So while the game is actually smaller, PlayStation owners still have the misfortune of needing almost 100GB of free space just to download Vanguard.

What the f*ck is up with the Zuck? Aside from everything going on with Facebook right now, anytime we see Zuckerberg in the news he’s doing something weird that leaves people scratching their heads in confusion. Last spring, he donned a full face slathered in sunscreen while surfing in Hawaii then made the entire internet cringe when he celebrated July 4th by flying an American Flag while riding an electric surfboard. Now he’s inexplicably snuck a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce into his presentation for the Facebook name-change pivot, Meta.

At least there is no water involved in this one. But on its face, it seems even more absurd than a rich dude trying to avoid too many UV rays.

Seriously, just what the hell is going on here? Why the bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce? Why is it on a bookshelf and what does he think it says to us about him? How did it get there and better yet, who put it there? This would be coffee-cup-in-the-final-season-of-Game of Thrones-levels of carelessness, so I refuse to believe it’s an oversight. I’d like to think someone pointed it out to him and he simply replied, “I’m going to answer you the same way I’ve answered my wife for the last nine years of our marriage: ‘The Baby Ray’s stays.’”

Alas, the answer isn’t quite that fun. According to some internet sleuthing, it appears that Zuckerberg’s love for Sweet Baby Ray’s goes deep and was first revealed in an early Facebook Live presentation where, according to this Ceros article that chronicles the whole thing, he uttered the word “meats” about 13 times in a single video and name-dropped the sauce constantly.

Of course, this was given the meme treatment.

Also, who could forget this summer bop, which is the coolest thing the Zuck has ever been involved in, even if it wasn’t intentional.

That means that the Baby Ray’s bottle is actually an example of him being meta in a presentation about Meta, which itself is an anagram for meat. Our minds would be blown if this didn’t seem like a shallow attempt at making the internet forget Facebook’s role in public polarization. Here is how the rest of the internet took the ploy:

T-Pain was on Twitch well before it was cool. While Twitch had been in use for years among video game fans, it was not a place that celebrities typically hung out like it is now. These days it’s not uncommon for famous athletes, actors, or musicians to be seen hanging out on Twitch playing a game and interacting with their community. T-Pain, on the other hand, was doing it originally as just something to do in his free time. He’d play games, show off new music, and just hang out.

These days, Twitch is almost as much of a job as his music career for him. He’s an extremely popular streamer with thousands of people tuning into his streams live or watching the VODs after he’s wrapped up. Twitch saw his popularity and got in contact with him. Now, T-Pain and Twitch have formed a partnership where his presence on the site will be even more visible. He’s kicking off his partnership with an exclusive listening party on his Twitch channel for his new single “I’m Cool With That.”

“This partnership means that I have been seen,” T-Pain said. “With so little representation on the service previously, the fact that Twitch came to me means that they actually see our community and understand the value of our contribution to the streaming world. We’ve been hosting beat battles and collaborative sessions for years… ‘I’m Cool With That’ is a combination of some of those efforts and was the first song created and released with my community, and I hope this is just the start of a journey Twitch and I are about to go on to uplift and strengthen the music community on Twitch.”

The upcoming listening party will be where T-Pain further breaks down the new track and shares details about other aspects of his partnership, such as monthly “Post Ya Song” and “Post Ya Beat” reviews from community producers. It’s really cool to see this kind of opportunity for T-Pain considering that he was one of the first well-known names to really embrace Twitch. Now he has a partnership and his community gets to watch his streams become even bigger.

This is another big step for Twitch as well, as the platform continues to try and show it’s for more than just video games. Twitch will always be about video games first and foremost, but the platform has not shied away from growing to become something even bigger. Lucky for them, T-Pain not only represents the video game side of the platform but the music side as well. He’s the perfect choice for this partnership.