Month: July 2023

The Atlanta Hawks entered this offseason coming off of a second straight first round exit, but this year there is far more optimism after pushing Boston to six games and feeling like there is something to build off of.

This will be Quin Snyder’s first offseason as head coach of the Hawks, after he signed on midseason following the firing of Nate McMillan. After their playoff series, star guard Trae Young expressed his excitement about what Snyder was going to bring the team with a full offseason to install his system, as the Hawks look to avoid the Play-In this coming season. If they’re to do so, they’ll have to see some internal improvement under Snyder, as — as of now — there aren’t any major changes being made to the roster.

Atlanta had a fairly quiet offseason, making one major trade and, otherwise, only making additions via the Draft. Here, we’ll take stock of their summer so far, handing out grades for their Draft, free agency signings and contract extensions, and work on the trade market.

Draft: A-

The Hawks brought in three players via the Draft, with Kobe Bufkin as their first round selection and then adding Mouhamed Gueye and Seth Lundy in the second round. Bufkin and Gueye signed 4-year rookie deals to join the main roster, while Lundy signed a two-way contract. The Bufkin and Gueye picks were both well received, with our Brad Rowland giving Atlanta an A- for the Bufkin pick, explaining the grade as follows.

Bufkin is a very strong pick for the Hawks. He checks a lot of boxes on both ends of the floor with shooting guard size and point guard skills. Bufkin has strong basketball feel and he is already a quality defender that could continue to improve as he gets stronger.

Bolstering their point guard rotation and adding another young big made for a solid draft night, as the Hawks did well to seemingly maximize pick value.

Free Agency/Extensions: B

The Hawks haven’t signed any free agents this summer, which is rather incredible, but this was a team that came into the offseason without any real departures from their rotation. While they’ve been active in the trade market (both in discussions and deals getting done), they were never going to do much when it came to free agency.

There was one major contract decision for the Hawks to make, and that was whether to give a 4-year, $120 million contract extension to Dejounte Murray (the max they could offer this summer). They did and Murray accepted, as he got the big long-term deal he was seeking without having to be concerned about the free agent market next summer. Given what we saw this year with some free agents getting squeezed, it’s hard to blame him even if he very well could’ve gotten a bigger deal on the open market. For the Hawks, they’re now committed to the Murray-Young backcourt after some rumblings Murray was a part of trade talks early in the summer, but get Murray at a potential discount by locking him up on an extension now rather than waiting another year — and don’t have to worry about the possibility of losing him in free agency after trading so many draft picks to keep him around.

Trades: D+

After years of trying to move John Collins but balking at the offers from other teams, the Hawks finally sent him to the Utah Jazz in exchange for Rudy Gay and a second round pick. It was far less value than Collins’ production deserves in return in a vacuum, but considering how much is left on his contract (three years, $78 million remaining), how he was coming off the least productive season of his career, and the lack of teams with cap room this summer, there weren’t a lot of options. We have grown accustomed to the Hawks making moves to dodge the tax in recent years, but doing so and selling low is particularly bad and it’d be hard to sell lower on Collins than this summer.

They did do well in taking advantage of the Rockets’ haste to create more room for their pursuit of Brook Lopez by bringing in Usman Garuba and TyTy Washington, who they flipped alongside Gay for Patty Mills in a deal with the Thunder. Mills gives them a veteran guard who can shoot for their bench rotation, but how much he can help them is a question mark as he enters his 15th season in the league and is coming off a season in Brooklyn where he was used sparingly.

There is, of course, a chance the Hawks make another splash in the trade market and change their grade, as there are still rumblings of interest in Pascal Siakam amid their very public efforts to trade De’Andre Hunter. However, for now, they’ve not done particularly well, entirely because of the Collins trade made too late.

As Donald Trump continues to face a mounting barrage of indictments and lawsuits, reports have painted Melania Trump as largely indifferent to her husband’s legal troubles. The former First Lady has maintained a low public profile and is only occasionally seen with Trump at Mar-a-Lago where she reportedly lives in a separate area with her parents and son Barron.

However, a new report claims Melania’s involvement in Trumpworld is not as minimal as it seems. According to The New York Times, Melania has remained “defensive of her husband” and “deeply distrustful of the mainstream media.” (She’s reportedly an avid reader of the Daily Mail, which noted Never Trumper Meghan McCain is probably thrilled to know.)

More damningly, Melania is reportedly “skeptical” of the E. Jean Carroll accusations and “livid” with Trump’s legal team for losing the court case that found her husband liable for sexual abuse and defamation:

When Mrs. Trump saw coverage of her husband’s deposition in the case, she was livid at his legal team for failing to do more to raise objections. She has also privately questioned why Ms. Carroll could not recall the precise date of the alleged assault.

In another surprising twist, sources close to Melania also claim that she’s become increasingly receptive to a second term in the White House and has been paying close attention to Casey DeSantis’ activities on the campaign trail. However, Melania has yet to join her husband at rallies despite his repeated requests.

(Via The New York Times)

Barbenheimer went from a meme to a movement to a celebration of movies with the power of 1,000 Nicole Kidman AMC ads. In a world painted gray by the overuse of phrases like iconic, culture-defining, and earth-shaking, this phenomenon was actually all of the above. And it got that money, too. But will Barbenheimer’s success be studied like a new playbook or shaken off as a once-in-a-blue-moon perfect storm?

Let me start by saying I don’t participate in box office discourse, I endure it. Quickly assigning badges like “blockbuster” and “bomb” makes movies less accessible by telling an incomplete story about their actual quality. It also taints the overall conversation as debates over art and meaning give way to talk about franchise viability.

Some fans pay so much attention to box office returns that you’d think they’re getting points on the backend. It weirds me out. But Barbie and Oppenheimer combining to make approximately $240M through their opening weekend in the US (over $400 million worldwide) is undeniably interesting and worth comment. Especially when compared to the rather middling performances of this summer’s most anticipated tentpoles – The Flash, Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1.

Those films collectively, represent a popular path that’s all about an assumption (somewhat undone by Barbenheimer) that there is only safety in franchises and in what is known, such as the 5th Indiana Jones, the 7th Mission Impossible, and the umpteenth DCEU movie. (I could have gone back and counted, but haven’t those films taken enough of my time?)

This is also why we get so many Marvel and Star Wars shows and movies every year: familiarity, but it’s starting to come at a risk. Like, people still get up for these projects, but the excitement and cultural conversation dominance are palpably lighter. The whys are myriad and subjective, but one thing is, as a Marvel and Star Wars fan, I might need to track 40-50 hours of entertainment each year to stay engaged with those two separate worlds. This is at a time when it feels like other “prestige” shows are cutting their episode counts or ending altogether after shorter-than-typical runs. Comparatively, Marvel and Star Wars fandom can feel like an obligation. A fun one, often, but an obligation all the same.

I think studios sense this. Despite critical hyperbole, they aren’t actually churning out carbon copies, it’s more like variations on the same. Big, explosive, CGI-powered variations on the same that expand ideas. It’s simple Hollywood math: the sequel to the sequel’s sequel must be 4X bigger than the original or what are we even doing here and why are we spending $400 million and don’t we have to spend that if we want to make a billion and don’t we HAVE to make a billion? It’s kind of desensitizing and it’s definitely exhausting.

It’s not that people don’t want to see familiar characters in slightly remixed scenarios, it’s that the urgency might just be capped because of the sheer volume of prompts every year to do exactly that with another familiar franchise. You can’t feel FOMO when it’s all a bit “been there done that.”

A movie about a doll with fading relevancy and a 3-hour historical epic about a weapon to end a war waged by our grandparents and great-grandparents. By those descriptions, Barbie and Oppenheimer weren’t supposed to capture broad audiences and crush at the box office. And yet.

It was almost immediately clear from the first images and footage that these films would be ambitious, specific, smart, well-acted, and the product of letting two tremendous filmmakers (Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan) cook. Barbie and Oppenheimer were fresh and unlike other things on the summer slate, and so originality and the promise of a good time became their own kind of must-see spectacle. Still, no one predicted the two films would combine to break records and unify fans, creating a celebratory moment of culture and commerce that we have rarely seen.

I’m sure, in some circles, this is all a little terrifying. A lot of people in the entertainment industry justify their existence by knowing the future before it happens when it comes to what audiences will and won’t gravitate toward. But this is why we play the game, and now we have new data that, hopefully, points toward betting on creative vision more and maybe letting off the gas a little when it comes to franchise golden geese before exhaustion settles in.

The audience is out there, money in hand, begging for more (that doesn’t necessarily mean Barbie 2 or the Adventures Of Young Oppenheimer). We’re ready to embrace more unicorn films like Barbie and Oppenheimer (and They Cloned Tyrone, which was the #1 streamed film on Netflix this weekend and an utterly fantastic, imaginative, and clever sci-fi social satire). Evidence is mounting that we’re verifiably less inclined to care about paint-by-numbers products pumped out by computers (or unambitious humans) that just repurpose and re-order pre-existing words and ideas, rarely challenging or respecting us.

Studios should remember all of this, especially in this tense moment as they consider the impact of the ongoing stalemate with the writers and actors that is, at least in part, about leaning into AI tech that would create that kind of cookie-cutter content. The resulting rationing of films and scuttling of positive momentum for the industry does not one any good in the short or long term. Because it’s not just about lost dollars, it’s about lost relevancy and enthusiasm, which are harder to recover.

Can you remember the last time there was this much excitement and joy about movies? It’s like there’s a shady figure just out of view sneaking up on all of us to drag us back down to the dregs of empty theaters and boring weekends. I hope someone does something about it. If we avoid calamity, we may have Barbenheimer to thank.

(Spoilers from The Walking Dead will be found below.)

A new teaser for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira as Rick and Michonne) actually looks much better than I imagined it would look, given the lovey, dovey vibe stressed in initial promo images. This spinoff should arrive sometime in 2024, following the success of Dead City and the upcoming Daryl In Paris, both of which have already been renewed for second seasons.

However, we almost wouldn’t have received a Rick Grimes spinoff at all, or even much of Rick, if co-creator Robert Kirkman had originally gotten his way. Unlike with the comics (his own comics, mind you), Kirkman initially thought it would be amazing to make Rick bite the dust on TV. This obviously didn’t happen, and I am further convinced that Rick Grimes cannot be killed. I mean, he somehow survived the below scenario and kept living after un-impaling himself, no less, albeit with the wrong kind of help.

We were nearly deprived of this moment, too! Still, yeah, Kirkman admitted (during this past weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con) that he was a “lunatic” who wanted to kill off a beloved (although bad-decision-making) character. Via Entertainment Weekly:

“With Walking Dead, I was much younger and much more reckless,” Kirkman told the audience. “I was an absolute lunatic. I would get in the writers’ room and be like, ‘Kill Rick Grimes today! I don’t care! It’ll be funny! People will freak out, and it’ll be fun!’ The writers were like, ‘Robert, you’re crazy. We can’t do that.’ But any time there were big changes in The Walking Dead, that’s what excited me.”

I do wonder, though, how Kirkman wanted to do it. That first horse scene would have been the funniest in retrospect, but the entire trajectory of the show would have been altered. Who would we have seen Jon Bernthal’s character go nuts with jealousy against, after all? That had to happen, as did the flashbacks of their once-wonderful friendship. Yet it seems that someone talked Kirkman off that story ledge, and over a decade later, we’re about to see Rick Grimes and Michonne return with their own show (I hope she saves his ass several times) within the next year.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

A New York drug dealer connected to the overdose death of actor Michael K. Williams received a two-year prison sentence on Tuesday after both The Wire creator David Simon and Williams’ nephew petitioned the court for leniency.

Carlos Macci was looking at 20 years in prison after being connected to the drug crew that sold Williams the fatal dose. Unlike fellow dealer Irvin “Green Eyes” Cartagena, Macci was not directly charged with Williams’ death, but he was still looking at significant jail time. In a letter to the court, Simon argued that Williams would’ve been opposed to the lengthy sentence.

Via Associated Press:

“I miss my friend,” he wrote. “But I know that Michael would look upon the undone and desolate life of Mr. Macci and know two things with certainty: First, that it was Michael who bears the fuller responsibility for what happened. And second, no possible good can come from incarcerating a 71-year-old soul, largely illiterate, who has himself struggled with a lifetime of addiction.”

Williams’ nephew Dominic Dupont, who was extremely close to the actor, also asked the court for leniency. Dupont told the judge that he sympathized with Macci’s plight and believed he could turn his life around.

“It weighs heavy on me to see someone be in a situation he’s in,” Dupont said. “I understand what it is to be system impacted.”

(Via Associated Press)

Ice Spice is one of the most strategic acts in the game right now — both on and off the mic. As she is adjusting to stardom, she’s come up with special ways to maintain her sanity while on the go.

In an interview with British Vogue, she revealed the things she likes to keep in her pink Chanel bag — including some handy garments.

“I always keep a pantie on me,” Ice said. “The baddies that get it, get it. All my panties are pink. I always keep a pantie because like, you just be having to change your panties.”

There was no shortage of pink accessories in her purse, in addition to the underwear. Ice likes to keep pink lip gloss, which she said she’s been wearing since she was in high school. She also carries a pink wallet, as she admits she has a spending habit.

But there’s one thing for sure that Ice can’t leave home without.

“The most essential thing a musician should have in their bag — earphones,” said Ice. “That way, you can, like, listen to beats [and] jot down some lyrics.”

She specifically noted that she prefers wired headphones, as Bluetooth headphones often have a lag with the sound.

You can watch the full interview above.

When the In-Season Tournament sprouted as an idea, a major discussion point was why players and teams should care about playing for a trophy not named after Larry O’Brien. What would incentivize players to play harder or teams to strategize for a random collection of games in the middle of the season?

The NBA decided against awarding a playoff spot, a draft pick, or funky salary cap incentives and decided a cash prize and a trip to Vegas in December would suffice. It’s difficult to imagine LeBron James or Steph Curry coveting the $500,000 cash prize, but that’s a nice chunk of change for a player on the minimum or a rookie-scale contract. Teams may also find extra incentive in having games early in the season where the competition level cranks up a half-notch. For example, in the knockout round, a team could test drive a young player to see if they’re ready for the bright lights in May and June. A team with little playoff experience or roster cohesion could fine tune their playoff rotation. The tournament could serve as a sandbox for the league’s most creative coaches. Somewhere Nick Nurse is dreaming about the gnarliest defensive scheme he could deploy in a single elimination tournament.

The Play-In Tournament has provided some highly entertaining and competitive games, but the Play-In is just a ticket for the real playoffs. The In-Season Tournament presents an opportunity for both teams and players to add something to their resumes. As the years go by, In-Season Tournament accolades will slowly drip into the discourse about a player, team, or coach. There will be an iconic In-Season Tournament performance or a championship game disaster. The single elimination format provides an opportunity for teams at the margins to take center stage. Only a handful of teams are title contenders each year, but in theory, any team can string together eight games and win the tournament. That opportunity will be especially meaningful to teams on the outside looking in. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few teams who should really value the In-Season Tournament.

Oklahoma City Thunder

The Thunder are transitioning out of the Sam Presti draft pick ponzi scheme into a promising young team loaded with talent. OKC probably isn’t ready for a deep playoff run, but with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the bevy of young playmakers around him, they’re poised to upset any team in a single elimination game. The tournament also gives head coach Mark Daigneault an opportunity to sort out his rotation. OKC currently suffers from their own success and Sam Presti’s addiction to making trades. They have 21 legitimate NBA players on their roster and will be forced to cut that down to 15 by the end of camp. Even after the roster cuts, dispersing minutes amongst all of OKC’s promising young players will be next to impossible. Who Daigneault chooses to play in deciding games could forecast which OKC youngsters will be around for the long haul.

Charlotte Hornets

Can you name the biggest moment in Hornets history? I certainly cannot. The franchise has never made the conference finals, and since the team was revived in Charlotte back in 2004, they have not won a playoff series. A run in the In-Season Tournament would mean a lot to a franchise like that. They would certainly hang a banner for a tournament win and it’s the kind of accomplishment that would mean more to them than many of the league’s title contenders. There could be no better way to initiate the In-Season Tournament than LaVar Ball standing next to LaMelo on the championship podium. That’s what the tournament should be all about.

Phoenix Suns

Is a weekend trip to Vegas enough to entice DeAndre Ayton into playing hard during the tournament? That’s one of many questions that will be facing this experimental Suns roster this season. The tournament could provide an early look at the role players surrounding the core four players in a competitive environment. Despite Devin Booker turning into a human flamethrower last season, Phoenix couldn’t overcome the shoddy shooting from their role players. The Bradley Beal introduction and new cast of role players will bring many questions for Phoenix, and the tournament may provide an early trial run to seek out some answers.

Sacramento Kings

Sacramento sprung back into relevancy last season through the sublime clutch play of De’Aaron Fox and the power of the beam. With a loaded Western Conference, there’s an expectation that Kings will regress a bit this season, but they’ll be eager to prove last year’s run to the 3-seed wasn’t a fluke. For Sacramento, the tournament provides an opportunity to define themselves as the league’s best up and coming team. Additionally, there is no better environment for a single elimination game than the Golden One Center. Hopefully the beam shines a little brighter for a In-Season Tournament win.

Los Angeles Lakers

There is no basketball argument for this. LeBron James does not need the In-Season Tournament for his legacy or to even challenge himself. The Lakers proved last year they could make a playoff run with very little roster cohesion. However, the Lakers winning the In-Season Tournament would send Laker fans into a frenzy. They would never stop talking about it (at least until the actual playoffs started). Every talk show endlessly discussing the meaning of the tournament. Eventually someone, somewhere, would say that Michael Jordan never won the In-Season Tournament. Maybe the Lakers even hang a baby banner. If Adam Silver wants the tournament to become a huge thing, this is the outcome that gets the most people talking.

Travis Scott is getting involved with a new film titled Circus Maximus after he revealed the trailer for it during his recent set at Rolling Loud Miami. Not only is he set to direct the project, but Scott will act in it as well.

Several other well-known directors are attached to the movie, including Harmony Korine (Spring Breakers), Gaspar Noe, Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Kahlil Joseph, and Valdimar Jóhannsson.

According to Variety, A24 is not involved with the film, despite their logo being on a poster that Scott posted. The film’s release is tied to Scott’s new album, Utopia, both of which drop Thursday at midnight.

Circus Maximus‘ runtime is an hour and fifteen minutes. Fans can watch it at various AMC theaters across the country. According to the description, the site reads: “The film is a surreal and psychedelic journey, uniting a collective of visionary filmmakers from around the world in a kaleidoscopic exploration of human experience and the power of soundscapes.”

“Travis Scott takes his audience on a mind-bending visual odyssey across the globe, woven together by the speaker rattling sounds of his highly anticipated upcoming album ‘Utopia,’” it adds.

Tickets for the movie can be found here.

Check out the trailer for Scott’s Circus Maximus above.

Megan Fox got ahead of the response she knew her new outfit would get on Instagram.

While wearing an orange striped mesh maxi dress that would drive Tony the Tiger wild, the Jennifer’s Body actress wrote, “before you start angrily typing- those are not my nipples, calm down. they are safely and completely hidden under nipple covers so no worries, we will all live another day without a rip in the space-time continuum.”

In addition to the dress, the Transformers star sported silver statement necklaces by Dylan Lex and had her hair swept up into a top knot. And she had plenty of fans cheering her on in the comments. “Goddess energy,” Selling Sunset alum Christine Quinn wrote, while Jersey Shore’s Jenni “JWOWW” Farley dropped a series of fire emojis.

The caption sounds like something Fox would say (and something her on-again, off-again partner Machine Gun Kelly would comment on), but was it actually her typing the words? “I have social media, but I don’t personally use it. I have somebody who posts for me and I decide what I want to say,” she explained to Glamour U.K. in 2022. “But I think it’s sinister. I think it’s evil.”

You can see the post below.

(Via E! Online)

Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” is currently No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but the song has received some significant negative attention due to its allegedly racist video. The visual as it exists on YouTube today, though, apparently isn’t the same as it was when it was originally uploaded on July 14.

The Washington Post reports the video is now six seconds shorter than it was when it was uploaded, and that it “no longer contains a news clip from Fox 5 Atlanta depicting violent confrontations during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020 and subsequent protests in January.” The publication also notes that “portions of that clip appeared twice in the original music video,” and that while it’s “unclear when exactly the video was edited,” “numerous changes appear to have been made since last week.”

They also report, “The final 30 seconds of the original video featured idyllic rural footage including a man in a baseball cap and sunglasses looking into the sun, and an older man speaking about small-town values while sitting in a wheelchair. Neither clip appears in the new version.”

The publication notes they got no responses when reaching out to YouTube, Fox 5, or TackleBox (the production company behind the video) about the video.