Month: July 2023

Last week The Daily Beast reported some bad news for Kari Lake. Sources close to Donald Trump said the failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and weird Zoom background filer user was on the outs with the big guy. But there’s someone who’s shooting that rumor down: Kari Lake.

Again as per The Daily Beast, the former anti-Trumper went on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room, where she basically deemed such reports fake news.

“Now, I know they just make things up from scratch. Nothing is true,” Lake claimed. “They attack the people who are exposing the truth… When they attack me, it makes me feel good.”

Lake also took umbrage with a report by Vanity Fair, in which sources said she had basically moved into Mar-a-Lago in a desperate attempt to schmooze her way into his 2024 vice presidential pick. If true, perhaps that backfired, that Trump and his team had spent enough time with her to see her as, according to one of his advisers, a “spotlight hound.”

“They have me on the outs and that the MAGA world is done with me,” she complained. “It doesn’t make sense. They are desperate. They’re grasping for straws.”

The Daily Beast report had sources saying that, while Trump appreciated her for being “loyal,” he worried she would out-shine him. He also didn’t like her “running around saying she should be VP.” She was also called a “shameless, ruthless demagogue who wants power and will do whatever she has to do to get it.” A spokesperson for Lake denied the report then and Lake is denying it now, too.

Of course, she also kept claiming, for a very long time, that she won a race she didn’t. So who’s to say?

(Via The Daily Beast)

Tyrese Haliburton was a rather polarizing prospect coming into the 2020 NBA Draft, as there were some who felt he was among the very best prospects given his feel for the game and efficient productivity in college, while others had questions, especially about how his odd jump shot form would translate to the NBA.

Plenty were skeptical of whether his unique release would be effective or consistent enough to be a successful shooter in the NBA, but through three seasons in the NBA he has never shot worse than 40 percent from three. Now the leading man in Indiana, which was cemented with a new supermax contract extension this summer, Haliburton hasn’t forgotten all of those doubts and has hundreds of tweets bookmarked that he’ll unload on a rainy day.

He also hasn’t forgotten those who were in his corner, including someone not many would think of given he’s played in Sacramento and Indiana thus far in his career. As Haliburton told Paul George on the latest episode of Podcast P, he credits Steve Kerr with ensuring the Kings didn’t try to get him to tweak his jumper, as he learned Kerr called up then-Sacramento coach (and former Warriors assistant) Luke Walton after the draft and told Walton not to touch Haliburton’s jumper.

“When I got drafted, Luke didn’t really know anything about me, and one of the stories he told me recently was that Coach Kerr had called him, cause I worked out for the Warriors. And Coach Kerr called him and was like, ‘We love that kid, don’t ever touch his jumper.’ And Luke was like, ‘Are you sure?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah yeah, don’t touch it.’ Luke just kind of let me do my thing and from there no one’s ever messed with me about it.”

That advice has certainly been spot on from Kerr, who could clearly see that Haliburton had something in his game that was special. However, it wasn’t enough for Golden State to take him second (which would’ve been a rather wild selection in the moment, but in hindsight would’ve been about right) and when the couldn’t trade back with anyone, Haliburton slid down to the Kings at 12. Now he’s an All-Star in Indiana, thanks in large part to that funky jump shot that is one of the most efficient in the NBA, and with three years of elite shooting numbers, it’s safe to assume no one will be trying to tweak his form ever again.

The playoffs teach young players invaluable lessons about what is required of them to take the next steps into stardom. The 2023 postseason featured a number of young stars who entered this summer with some new focal points for their offseason workout plans. In our Playoff Lessons series, we’ll highlight some of those, starting with Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr.

Jackson is only 23 years old. It’s easy to consider him an established, weathered veteran, given how long he’s graced NBA headlines, bursting onto the scene as a defensive wunderkind in 2018-19, regressing on that end a year later, making offensive strides, and enduring various injuries — all for one of the league’s livelier squads. But Jackson is just now approaching the prime of his career as he readies for his sixth campaign, coming off the best season of his career.

He earned his first All-Star appearance. He became the third player 23 or younger to win Defensive Player of the Year, joining Kawhi Leonard and Dwight Howard. He was an All-Defensive First Team honoree for the second consecutive season. He averaged a career-high 18.6 points on a career-high 61.3 percent true shooting. After 2022-23, the Memphis Grizzlies are not a one-star team fueled by Ja Morant’s intrepid skillset. Jackson is a full-fledged star alongside him as they and Desmond Bane try to break through in the Western Conference arms race.

Jackson’s second playoff run as an All-Defense stopper unfurled much better than 2021-22. He played nearly 10 more minutes per game and averaged 2.2 fewer fouls per 100 possessions. This past spring, he logged 37-plus minutes four times in six first-round games against the Los Angeles Lakers. A year prior, he did so just once in 12 postseason outings, when he struggled to aptly juggle defensive influence and discipline. Whether it was LeBron James, Anthony Davis, or any other Lakers offensive figurehead, Jackson’s presence consistently invaded their intentions around the paint. The defensive showcase Jackson and Davis hosted in Round One was among the most captivating subplots of the playoffs.

Yet for all of Jackson’s defensive artistry, his offensive exploits stumbled. His true shooting fell to 54.6. He shot 48.3 percent on two-pointers, compared to 58.5 percent in the regular season. Just as he terrorized the interior for Los Angeles, the favor was returned to him offensively. The Lakers scouted his tendencies and exploited his deficiencies. While he grew immensely as a driver, face-up operator, and mismatch scorer last season, the remaining steps ahead to further his offensive maturation were evident. The playoffs magnified lessons about his game that should ultimately benefit him and enable him to become better suited to avoid similar pitfalls moving forward.

In Game 1 of the first round, Jackson vaporized Los Angeles with 31 points on 13-of-21 shooting and notched four assists to one giveaway. As the series evolved, though, Los Angeles incrementally extinguished his flame; he finished the series averaging 18 points and recorded nine assists to 18 turnovers across the six games they played.

The Lakers highlighted his limited playmaking vision and sought to take away his left hand as a post scorer. Jackson hasn’t necessarily been tasked with lofty passing responsibilities throughout his career, yet he must refine his facilitating if he wishes to increasingly assume a larger burden and excel as a complementary offensive hub. His stylistic diversity to perimeter engines in Morant and Bane is valuable, and can elevate the Grizzlies’ sticky halfcourt attack if he emerges viable of continually scaling up the workload. Doubling him was a nod to his scoring, an indictment of his passing, and a distrust of his surrounding personnel. Los Angeles felt confident he would not burn its defense with lobs, laydowns, kickouts, or skip passes to open teammates, and he didn’t because that’s never been a reliable facet of his repertoire.

During the regular season, his 4.8 percent assist rate ranked in the 14th percentile among big men, per Cleaning The Glass, and his 0.22 assist-to-usage rate sat in the 2nd percentile. During the playoffs, those marks perked up to 6.8 percent (37th percentile) and 0.31 (13th percentile), but leveraging his scoring gravity into passing opportunities for his peers remains an area of improvement. Through five regular seasons, he’s never finished above 34th percentile in either category.

The Lakers forced him to play in a crowd, where he proved uncomfortable and ineffective. Memphis’ insufficient floor-spacing perhaps dissuaded him from certain decisions, though he also missed reads to credentialed shooters like Luke Kennard. He relishes playing through contact and his balance against physicality was a major point of growth last season. Yet when initiating contact didn’t fashion the space he intended, he often didn’t holster a useful plan B and it led to some precarious, off-kilter shots versus Los Angeles’ web of limbs.

Whether it’s sharpening his processing as a passer or discerning more avenues for his own scoring, incorporating counters will be integral for Jackson’s sustained offensive development. Counters are the mark of premier players. As a defender, Jackson owns them. Offensively, adding them will help him dampen the volume of plays like these.

Not every defense Jackson and the Grizzlies encounter in future playoff pursuits will be as stingy as the 2022-23 Lakers, a unit anchored by Davis’ greatness and flanked by size and range around him. Once they retooled the roster at the February trade deadline, they were the league’s top-ranked defense. Analyzing the holes of Jackson’s game through that narrow, utmost prism would be insincere. But if he can remedy struggles against that bunch, he will be well suited to handle most anything else sent his direction, and it’s not as though his struggles are contained to this specific context either. They were merely underscored on this national stage.

With he, Morant and Bane all 25 or younger, the Grizzlies have their eyes on grand plans that have not been satisfied for internal and external reasons. All brandishing lengthy, lucrative deserved contracts, they are equipped with the bandwidth to change that, however. Their last playoff exit reinforced how they can do so, perhaps no more prominently than the lessons Jackson’s scoring struggles illuminated. Time is required in adjusting to heightened defensive attention. Leveling up as a scorer often precedes leveling up as a passer during a star’s ascent. Jackson may be the in the midst of that common storyline.

The postseason is a means of indispensable education for the NBA’s foremost players. After all he accomplished in 2022-23, Jackson meets that criteria. Now comes the application of those lessons, navigating the windfalls, expectations and challenges accompanying stardom.

Rainn Wilson recently stopped by Bill Maher’s podcast where The Office star made a surprising confession: He did not have a great time playing Dwight Schrute, one of the wildly popular mockumentary series’ most well-known characters.

“I wasn’t enjoying it,” Wilson revealed. However, it wasn’t The Office or his role that was the problem. Wilson candidly shared that obsessing over the state of his career ruined what should’ve been an amazing experience.

“I was thinking about, ‘Why am I not a movie star? Why am I not the next Jack Black or the next Will Ferrell? How come I can’t have a movie career? Why don’t I have this development deal?’” Wilson said.

The actor has since changed his perception. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“When I was in The Office, I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn’t enough,” Wilson told Maher. “This is what I’m looking at now, and I’m realizing now, like, I’m on a hit show, Emmy nominated every year, making lots of money, working with Steve Carell and Jenna Fisher and John Krasinski and these amazing writers and incredible directors like Paul Feig. I’m on one of the great TV shows. People love it.”

Fans coming up to him after the pandemic and saying how The Office “healed” them during COVID also helped Wilson appreciate being a part of the show. In another candid confession, the actor shared that when he joined the show, his main concern was being able to buy a house.

“I wasn’t thinking about giving laughter as a therapeutic remedy and a balm and a salve to a hurting populace,” Wilson told Maher. “What an honor it was to be a part of something like that.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Ever since the pandemic, it seems concert etiquette has gone out the window. Fans are chucking things at performers on stage left and right, prompting artists like Adele, Billie Eilish, and Drake to speak out against fans getting out of control at concerts. However, at the Openair Frauenfeld festival in Switzerland on Saturday, things went the other direction, as a wannabe stage diver found out the hard way why venues discourage the practice. Getting a running start, the fan leaped into the unwilling crowd, which parted at once, allowing the fan to crash headlong into the ground.

While from the video, the disheveled daredevil looks to be mostly okay — if a little shaken up — they’ve undoubtedly learned an unpleasant lesson just like performers like Post Malone and Westside Boogie. And while Taylor Swift has incorporated a “stage dive” into her Eras Tour staging, she’s a professional and is likely landing on something designed by other professionals to cushion her fall and prevent injury (side note: there’s an episode of Poker Face that uses this as a major plot element, and I, for one, will never be doing such a thing as a result of watching it, safety equipment or no).

So, yeah, don’t throw stuff on stage — but please don’t throw yourself off of it, either.

(A disturbing clip will be found below, but if you already know The Walking Dead, you’ve definitely seen worse.)

The Walking Dead: Dead City is pleasing those viewers who might not necessarily be fans of the Old Negan but are nonetheless unable to look away from his gruesome-showman persona. As the episodes continue grinding away with Maggie and Negan in Manhattan, AMC has also had a ball showing off some footage for Norman Reedus’ Daryl In Paris spinoff, which sadly will not include a fan-favorite companion even though (for some good news) Melissa McBride’s Carol has been photographed on the set.

Previously, we’ve heard all about how Daryl mysteriously washes ashore in France with no idea how he arrived there after leaving The Commonwealth. He apparently took a very long nap (happens), but AMC has already made it clear that he’s not happy to find himself in Europe. And even worse, now it seems that some sadistic nuns have gotten ahold of our unwashed boo.

There is a branding iron involved. This is not a wonderful realization for Daryl, who already wasn’t religious (remember how unimpressed he was by the “Jesus” nickname back in Season 6?). All I can really conclude here is that Daryl needs his crossbow back right about now.

Alright, Carol. It’s time to show up!

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is still being cagey about its release date.

For those not well versed in moose facts, the shedding of antlers is normally a fairly lengthy process. It happens only once a year after mating season and usually consists of a moose losing one antler at a time.

It’s incredibly rare for a bull moose to lose both at the same time—and even more rare that someone would actually catch it on film.

That’s why shed hunter (yes, that’s a real term) and woodsman Derek Burgoyne calls his footage of the phenomenon a “one-in-a-million” shot.

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According to The Guardian, Burgoyne was flying his drone through a remote patch of forest in Canada when he spotted three moose in a clearing. His drone followed one of the bulls, who began doing the wobbly little shake thing that signals these antlers are going bye-bye.

Burgoyne knew he had to keep his camera on the moment—but he had no idea that he’d hit the jackpot.

Watch below:

It’s hard to tell which is more fun to watch— the super rare moment in nature or Burgoyne’s pure passion for his hobby.

“I shook a little bit. It was an adrenaline rush for sure,“ he told CBC News, sharing that he has previously found hundreds of shed antlers in his life.

Antler hunting has become a hot and profitable pastime over the past few years, although Burgoyne affirms that his shed hunting ambitions are born from a desire for well-being, not monetary gain.

“I enjoy being in the woods. It’s great exercise and it’s fun tracking the moose through the winter and looking for their sheds in the spring. Each one you find feels like the first one. It never gets old,” he told The Guardian.

Well Derek Burgoyne, thank you for doing what you love. Thanks to your passion, we too can share this once-in-a-lifetime moment. Here’s to good moose news!

This article originally appeared on 1.20.23

Narcissist has become somewhat of a buzzword across social media platforms. It’s become so common that the word has made its way into the daily lexicon of many people and in a sense lost the weight the word carries. Narcissist has become a catch all word for someone that may display toxic or undesirable behaviors.

But narcissism isn’t a fun pop culture word, it’s an actual mental health condition that requires a proper diagnosis. It also requires more than just doing something that someone doesn’t like to meet criteria. In fact, many people that have narcissistic personality disorder aren’t diagnosed because they generally don’t seek treatment due to exaggerated sense of self-importance, which can lead to toxic relationships.

Dr. Ramani is a clinical psychologist and narcissist expert, she teaches people how to interact with narcissistic people and how to recover from a narcissistic relationship. In a recent interview, Dr. Ramani sat down Lisa Bilyeu, the host of “Women of Impact” and discussed recognizing a narcissistic relationship pattern and how to escape.

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Dr. Ramani begins the segment by essentially comparing and contrasting what a healthy relationship is like in comparison to one that involves a narcissistic partner.

“They don’t want you to be strong. They don’t want you to succeed. They don’t want you to get away and they sure as heck don’t want you to be independent,” Dr. Ramani says. “Narcissism is about dominance, power and control.”

She explains that narcissists find it threatening if their partner is successful, particularly if they start to become more successful than the narcissist. But in a healthy relationship, there is no competition around success. The psychologist says in a healthy relationship the partners support each other and work through any insecurities.

There’s no need for one partner to shrink themselves so the other is more comfortable. On the other hand, in a narcissistic relationship there are no boundaries and when there are boundaries put in place by the non narcissist partner, the narcissist will punish them.

“There are a lot of different ways narcissistic people punish people,” Dr. Ramani explains. “They abandon people, they withhold from people, they humiliate people, they embarrass people publicly.”

Not only is the entire conversation eye opening but it is likely extremely helpful for people who may be questioning if they have found themselves in a narcissistic relationship. The full clip is below and Dr. Ramani does an exceptional job at laying things out in easy to understand terms and scenarios.

Tom Segura‘s new comedy special, Sledgehammer, dropped on Netflix last week, and it’s a tight, one-hour set showcasing the comedian’s latest tour. However, what fans didn’t get see was an anecdote about Segura moving into a new neighborhood where he quickly discovered that a certain “current or former” United States senator also lives.

In a new deleted scene from Sledgehammer, Segura walks the audience through his first (alleged) encounter with his famous neighbor, and man, is it awkward. While Segura was out taking a walk, the unnamed senator recognized the comedian and immediately asked him a very weird question: “Where do you think the term ‘motherf*cker’ comes from?”

Caught off guard by the question, Segura simply replied, “I dunno,” prompting his senatorial neighbor to share his theory: “Do you think it’s from people doing that?” And the conservation did not get better.

The senator then allegedly asked about the term “daughter f*ckers,” which Segura pointed out isn’t “an expression that anybody uses.” At that point, the senator just turns around and walks back into his house.

But their time together wasn’t over. As Segura headed home from his walk, the senator came back outside because he didn’t want their last conversation to weirdly end. Okay, fair enough, but then the senator starts to walk through the very obvious meaning of the term “motherf*cker” again.

“Wow,” Segura mockingly exclaimed. “I am so impressed that you put that together so quickly. I can see why you may or may not be Ted Cruz.”

Tom Segura: Sledgehammer is available for streaming on Netflix.

July 21st is a big day. After all, it’s when Blur releases The Ballard of Darren, their first album in eight years. It’s also when the nation’s multiplexes premiere both Barbie and Oppenheimer — two very different movies that have become joined at the hip on social media. The unlikely duo have inspired tons of memes, as well as a burning question: Which one will moviegoers pick? Tom Cruise thinks you should see both. And apparently a ton of people are listening to him.

As per Variety, AMC Theatres, the world’s largest cinema change, is claiming that more than 20,000 Stubs members have already planned a double feature of the two on the same day. Which will they see first? The PG-13 take on a doll line that has inadvertently caused some international controversy? Or the grim, R-rated docudrama about the “father of the atom bomb” that improbably features “prolonged full nudity” from some of its stars?

Mind you, as Variety points out, AMC just saying they’ve sold over 20,000 double features without comparable data points doesn’t mean a whole lot. It sure sounds like a really big number, though, doesn’t it?

Variety also notes that, after all the hype, neither may win the July 21 box office weekend. That could wind up going to this weekend’s almost certain champ, a little movie called Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. But again, even that film’s star is trying to marshal moviegoers to watch both possibly the pinkest movie ever made and a movie about the guy who sort of doomed humanity to a possible extinction. Movies are back, baby.

(Via Variety)