Month: October 2021

The Chicago Sky are headed to the WNBA Finals, where they will meet the Mercury or the Aces — with Phoenix having a chance to punch their ticket on Wednesday night. Chicago finished off a 3-1 series win over the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday with a dominant performance against the league’s No. 1 seed, cruising to a 79-69 win that didn’t really feel as in doubt as the 10-point margin would indicate.

Leading the way for the Sky was none other than Candace Parker, who showed out with 17 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists, doing a bit of everything for Chicago en route to the win. Parker was seemingly everywhere on both ends of the court, getting blocks and buckets inside, while also applying ball pressure on the perimeter, starting fastbreaks, and launching threes.

It was the type of performance in an elimination spot that WNBA fans have come to expect from the legend, who had plenty of help from her co-stars on the Sky. Courtney Vandersloot had it going early, pouring in 19 points to lead the Sky in scoring, lighting Connecticut up from three-point range early as they kept going under on screens to the dismay of just about everyone watching who wasn’t a Sky fan.

Also getting in on the fun was Kahleah Copper, who had 18 points and six rebounds in the win as she continues to be one of the breakout stars of the postseason in helping push Chicago to the Finals, showing off incredible handles and finishing skill once at the rim.

On the other side, league MVP Jonquel Jones had 25 points and 11 rebounds, trying to do every thing she could to keep the Sun in the game and force a Game 5, but it just wasn’t enough to withstand the onslaught from the Sky.

Chicago will sit back and watch the second semifinal out West to see if they’ll be able to book a flight out soon, as the 6-seed will need to take a third straight series as the road team if they are to win their first championship in franchise history.

The NBA has seen an incredible percentage of players get vaccinated as the preseason has gotten underway, as 96 percent of the league has had at least one shot. There are a few holdouts still, most notably Kyrie Irving, and those players are going to face similar testing protocols and restrictions to movement while on the road as a year ago, while vaccinated players will have those restrictions mostly pulled off.

In some markets, players won’t be able to play home games if they aren’t vaccinated, which is currently the predicament the Nets find themselves in with Irving and are now facing a difficult decision about whether they can deal with him being in and out of the lineup as a part-time player. San Francisco and now L.A. also have vaccine mandates for those who live and work in those cities, but the only city where visiting players who aren’t vaccinated will face tougher restrictions is Toronto.

The NBA has gotten clearance from the government to have teams fly in and out of Toronto to play games this year, avoiding another relocation to Tampa, but for the small percentage of unvaccinated players, they will have to be on their best behavior. As Shams Charania of The Athletic reported on Wednesday night, any unvaccinated player who leaves their hotel for anything beyond a team activity (so, a practice or game) will face criminal charges that could bring a six-month prison sentence.

That is quite the penalty and will require teams with any unvaccinated players to be sure those players are aware that they aren’t facing just a suspension or fine from the league for breaking protocol, but real punishment and criminal charges if they do so in Toronto this year.

Preseason basketball is rarely all that noteworthy on a national scale, as most big names are either in street clothes on the bench or are simply trying to get a little run in, find their flow, and stay healthy.

However, in Atlanta on Wednesday night we got a rare, legit highlight out of the preseason contest between the Hawks and Cavs in the fourth quarter when John Collins, who for some reason was still in the game, threw down a vicious alley-oop, and-one dunk on top of a late rotating Jarrett Allen.

There are few players in the NBA who are better at producing poster dunks than John Collins, as he rather famously put his playoff dunk over Joel Embiid on a t-shirt to wear to the next game, and on this occasion, Collins caught Allen napping a bit, and if you come over late on a Collins alley-oop, it’s best if you don’t come over at all. Allen not only had the indignity of getting dunked on but picked up a foul as well for just sort of wandering into Collins’ way and bumping him on the attempt.

It’s not often you get the bar for dunk of the season set this high in the preseason, but the recently well-paid Collins made his presence felt in a big way.

Jason Kidd is the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, his third stint as a head coach in the NBA, and he will be tasked with figuring out how to make the Luka Doncic-Kristaps Porzingis partnership work as the expectation this season is for the Mavs to breakthrough that first round ceiling to be a contender in the West.

There will be a lot of work to be done on Kidd’s end to get those two on the same page, particularly when it comes playoff time, but in the meantime, Kidd also has some work to do with getting comfortable in Dallas overall. I’m not just talking about on the bench, but also in front of the camera, because it’s clearly been awhile since Kidd had to take individual photos during team media day after a number of years as an assistant and the results were hilariously awkward.

Whoever made Kidd put on that giant collared retro shirt wasn’t doing him any favors, but neither was Jason choosing to stand there as stiff as possible. As a result, Kidd became fodder for NBA Twitter to do its thing, as there were plenty of jokes about him looking like knockoff Vin Diesel, a regular at a bowling league, and, of course, some Bryan Colangelo collar jokes.

Landing a hit record is already hard enough, but a Diamond-certified song is even harder. Luckily for Kanye West, he recently achieved both thanks to one of the most popular songs off his third album Graduation. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) announced that the rapper’s 2007 track “Stronger” just became his first Diamond-certified single. What that denotes is that the single sold at least 10 million copies since its release 14 years ago.

Four months after its release, “Stronger” became the rapper’s third No. 1 single when it reached the top of the singles chart at the end of September in 2007. Additionally, the song won a plethora of awards, which includes Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2007 BET Awards, Video Of The Year, Best Director, and Best Editing at the 2007 MTV VMAs, and Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2008 Grammy Awards.

One of the most infamous stories behind “Stronger” is that it was reportedly mixed more than 75 times before and after its release. West worked with eight audio engineers and 11 mix engineers from all over the world on the song, but it wasn’t until he called on Timbaland to re-do the track’s drum programming that he felt satisfied. Still, West later decided the song wasn’t nearly as good as Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which he sampled for “Stronger.”

In exactly one month, 88Rising, the record label and management company home to Asian and Asian-American artists, will deliver the third rendition of their Head In The Clouds festival. It’s an event the group has hosted every year since 2018, with the exception of 2020, due to the pandemic. Ahead of the showcase’s kick-off on November 6, 88Rising announced a new addition to the festival’s lineup: DJ and producer Illenium.

Illenium’s addition to the fest comes after he shared Fallen Embers earlier this year. He joins an already stacked lineup for Head In The Clouds. Other performers for the showcase include Joji, Saweetie, Guapdad 4000, Japanese Breakfast, Beadoobee, and many more.

During an interview with Uproxx about the festival last month, Ollie Zhang, 88Rising’s Chief Of Staff, spoke about the diversity of the showcase’s lineup.

“I think that’s always been 88Rising’s mission from since the start, ever since we were just shooting videos and putting them up on YouTube,” he said. “The goal was always to highlight all different types of music. Asian music is so broad and diverse. Everyone’s coming from a different place and we want to be able to represent that on the stage as well.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Believe it or not but Rocket League has been going strong since 2015. The idea is so simple. Take a car, give it some rockets, give players a soccer ball with two goals, and let them loose. The result is one of those games that is incredibly easy to sink hours into.

With a game this popular there have been plenty of crossovers with some of entertainment’s most famous cars, such as the Fast & Furious series. Unsurprisingly, this trend has no sign of stopping anytime soon and with the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die, coming to the theaters on Friday it was the perfect opportunity for Rocket League to embrace a new crossover.

James Bond has had a lot of different cars over the years, but the Aston Martin Valhalla will be the car making its way into Rocket League for any Bond superfans that want to use it in the game. It’s really a perfect combination when seeing it in action. Bond’s cars have always had modifications made to them and rocket boosters are a common one so it only makes sense that he would use it to score goals in Rocket League. How else is he going to spend his time when he’s not saving the world?

Anyone interested in using Bond’s car in Rocket League can do so for free, as it’s available on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation Network, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo Game Store.

Earlier this week, Verzuz announced that Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One would face off in the series’ next battle. It will be the third consecutive event between New York rappers following last month’s matchup between Fat Joe and Ja Rule and the one between The LOX and Dipset in August. Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One’s battle is a bit different than past hip-hop Verzuz events in that it will find viewers going a bit further back into the genre’s history, as the respective rappers both had their biggest moments in the late 1980s and ’90s. Speaking to HipHopDX, Big Daddy Kane explained why this Verzuz is important for hip-hop.

“This is bigger than me and KRS,” he said. “This is about the Golden Era of Hip Hop, to show that artists like MC Lyte, Doug E. Fresh, Public Enemy, Chubb Rock, Yo-Yo, Rakim, and Kwame are still putting in work and ripping stages.”

Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One’s Verzuz takes place on October 17 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The battle will kick off at 7PM EST and tickets for the event are available can be purchased here. Back in June, during a sit-down with HipHopDX, Big Daddy Kane called KRS-One and Rakim the only rappers who would make sense as opponents for a Verzuz.

“If we can get it to happen with me and KRS-One, I would rather it be like a battle format,” he said. “If it’s going to be me and Rakim, then we might as well just do it with the music. You know what I mean? I don’t really see him as a battle rapper.”

An actor is rarely exactly like the character they’re playing. It’s called acting. But sometimes the disconnect between a performer and the fictitious character they’re playing is too wide to ignore. The public has known since last December that Letitia Wright, the Guyanese-born English actress best known for playing brilliant scientist Shuri in the Black Panther wing of the MCU — a character that been seen as an inspiration for young, STEM-interested girls — has some kooky thoughts about the COVID-19 vaccines. But after a new report claimed she was spreading anti-vaxx misinformation on set of the BP sequel, people still couldn’t believe it.

Buried in a new report by The Hollywood Reporter on the industry’s attempts to get cast and crews fully vaccinated is a depressing bit about Wright, who is singled out as one of the few actors in the industry to share anti-vaxx views on social media. (The only other one named in the piece is Rob Schneider — august company indeed.) But Wright appears to be going further than the “makin’ copies” guy. A source on the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever tells THR that “she has espoused similar views about the COVID-19 vaccines on the Atlanta production.”

Back in December, Wright got into hot water for sharing a video on Twitter of someone spouting anti-vaxx nonsense, including something about an “ingredient allegedly being added to the COVID vaccine to detect those who have not taken it.” After pushback, Wright deleted the post, but later defended herself, saying, ““If you don’t conform to popular opinions. but ask questions and think for yourself….you get cancelled.” Soon thereafter she deleted her account altogether.

But in the ensuring 10 months she’s allegedly not been swayed by such development as the FDA giving full approval to Phizer, with Moderna and Johnson & Johnson en route. There are no details about what Wright is reportedly saying, but when news hit social media, Wright received another, even more severe backlash.

There were two main reactions to Wright’s alleged anti-vaxx position. One marveled at the idea of Shuri — again, an unimaginably brilliant scientist, responsible for some of Wakanda’s coolest high tech gizmos — being played by someone who’s terrible at science.

The other was that Wright’s future in the MCU, even in the now-filming Black Panther 2, is in doubt.

There were also enjoyably terrible puns.

Wright has yet to comment on the allegations, but just a reminder, over a year-and-a-half into a once-in-a-century public health crisis: scientists are smarter than you. Yes, even if you’re a Hollywood actor. In the meantime, perhaps she doesn’t want to run into fellow Disney employee Giancarlo Esposito in the commissary.

(Via THR)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s swing to the right under the Trump presidency puts abortion rights in peril throughout the United States. The Court’s decision not to act on a Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks has opened the floodgates for other states to restrict freedoms.

The Texas law deputizes its citizens to report those who’ve had an abortion after the fetus has a heartbeat or anyone who assisted in the process. Reporters whose information leads to a successful conviction can be awarded up to $10,000 by the state.

The law is astonishing in a state that claims to value freedom. What’s more authoritarian than paying your citizens to snitch on each other for their personal health decisions?

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“No matter where you live, no matter where you are, this moment is dark,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood, told the crowd at the Rally for Abortion Justice in Washington.

#NOW: The Women’s March is back in the nation’s capital for the Rally for Abortion Justice, a multi-city round of p… https://t.co/qGFbaj8jeb

— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews)
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In December, the Court is set to hear another landmark case in which the state of Mississippi is asking the justices to strike down a longstanding legal precedent that prevents restrictions on abortion access before a fetus is viable outside of the womb, which is at around 22 to 24 weeks.

Mississippi wants to ban abortions after 15 weeks.

Legal experts believe that if the court sides with Mississippi it could lead to an “inevitable cascade” of laws that would ban abortion.

“The Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade has said that there’s a right to choose abortion before viability,” Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University College of Law and author of the book, “Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present,” told PBS.

“So if the court is going to uphold this law as we expect it to, the court will either have to overrule Roe entirely or we’ll have to see that pre-viability bans are OK and potentially open the door to all kinds of legislation and to a decision overruling Roe down the road,” she added.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Americans stood up to support abortion rights at 660 rallies across the country. The rallies were organized by the Women’s March, in partnership with more than 90 groups, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Center for American Progress.

“I think it’s important to understand that pretty much everybody knows somebody that’s had an abortion,” Women’s March Executive Director Rachel O’Leary Carmona told CNN.

“It’s important for us to hear all these stories,” she said. “It also is a bit of a tragedy that you know, folks have to put their pain out on display for us to be taken seriously. So what we’re trying to do today is make sure we all lift our voices in solidarity with each other to make sure the folks in power hear our message.”

While this is a dark time for women’s rights in America, many who came out to the rallies used their creativity to express their anger at this unprecedented assault on women’s rights.

Here are some of the most creative and powerful signs from Saturday’s pro-choice rallies.

Where is the movement for #AbortionJustice? Where was the media? https://t.co/LlcxTYdrWo

— Just Mary (@JustTwin)
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HELLO GOOD MORNING.

it’s a marvelous day to be marching for #AbortionJustice 💖 https://t.co/xkxjZ1tpDV

— UltraViolet (Text JOIN to 98688) (@UltraViolet)
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NYC comes out for #AbortionJustice, as only NYC can. #MarchForReproductiveRights https://t.co/usU4zwjuXs

— act.tv (@actdottv)
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Still on message in Media PA ⁦@womensmarch⁩ https://t.co/CGvYzD7LzB

— Mary Ann S. (@MaryAnnSCliffo2)
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10.02.2021 #abortionjustice rally in #roc https://t.co/TEO5sQzVKA

— I grow things 🌸🐯🌱🌻👶 (@NMarksbury)
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I think the sign says it all! 🤷‍♀️ #ProChoice #mybodymychoice #AbortionIsHealthcare #AbortionIsAWomansRight… https://t.co/rao40GC4ey

— Emily Power (@EmilyPower)
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Quite possibly the best one yet here at the Anchorage #abortionjustice Rally
#DontTreadOnMe #WomensMarch… https://t.co/XtqSNvnqs3

— IndivisibleANC (@IndivisibleANC)
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No #forcedbirth but how about Mandatory Vasectomy?! #AbortionJustice https://t.co/xf4IRSXPDf

— Spooky Iris Weiss 👻🎃 (@EcoSexuality)
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At the nyc #WomensMarch2021 . These women… #TexasWarOnWomen #AbortionIsHealthcare #WomensRights #AbortionJustice… https://t.co/9qZVLTphKL

— AngryNYCGal (@AngryNYCGal)
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The women’s march in Vancouver WA today was powerful. BLM joined us in our common purpose to raise awareness of equ… https://t.co/ouq7Sh2LP9

— TPBlue (@TPBlue4)
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fresno protest today — Violet (@brownmanswh0re)
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@RonFilipkowski We support Texas #BansOffOurBodies #WomensMarch2021 #Pittsburgh https://t.co/jV4eQWehMs

— Freakin Reya Sunshine 🌵 (@bellablueyes1)
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