Month: May 2024

The Orlando Magic saw their season come to an end on Sunday in Cleveland. Despite going up by as many as 18 points on the road, the Magic were unable to prevent Donovan Mitchell from going off in what ended up being a 106-94 Cavs victory. The big problem for Orlando, as it’s been for basically the last decade, was an inability to hit shots, as the team went 29-for-86 (33.7 percent) from the field and 10-for-31 (32.1 percent) from deep.

Now, the Magic will enter a summer where they’re positioned to bolster their roster due to their ample cap space. And according to Shams Charania, one of the names that’s high on the team’s list is Golden State sharpshooter Klay Thompson.

“You look at the point guard position, but also, shooting and scoring on the wing, and one name to keep an eye on: Klay Thompson,” Charania said. “I’m told there is mutual interest between the Magic and Klay Thompson. Thompson, along with several other vets around the league, are looking at the Magic as a situation where, you plug in a guy like Klay Thompson, you plug in another veteran player — whether it be at the point guard position, shooting guard posiiton — this team can make a real jump around Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.”

While Thompson has spent his entire career with the Warriors, he’s slated to hit free agency this summer. His future with the team was under the spotlight all year, as the two sides were unable to come to terms on an extension, while Steph Curry made it a point to express to the media in the aftermath of the team’s Play-In Tournament loss to the Sacramento Kings that he wanted Thompson back.

It remains to be seen just how legitimate Thompson’s interest in going to Orlando is, but if this is not just an attempt to gain some leverage in contract talks with Golden State, he’d make a ton of sense on a team that is crying out for someone who can provide some juice on the offensive end of the floor. While he had his ups and downs this season, Thompson still averaged 17.9 points per game and shot 38.7 percent from three on nine attempts per game. The Magic, meanwhile, were 22nd in the league in offensive rating, 30th in threes made per game, 29th in threes attempted per game, and 24th in three-point field goal percentage. If the team is going to add a veteran with the intent of adding some juice to their offense in the free agent market, Thompson makes as much sense as anyone.

Yellowstone actor Ian Bohen has been promising that the Taylor Sheridan flagship series will have the greatest season finale known to mankind when it finally surfaces. This sounds like a bold claim for any series to make in advance, let alone a show that will be missing its A-list lead actor for complicated reasons (including reported clashes), but fans will trust in Taylor Sheridan’s storytelling while they await the conclusion of the fifth season.

Another actor who has (again, reportedly) clashed with Sheridan appears to be letting it slip that he will continue beyond Yellowstone and into an upcoming spin off. Would that be a claim regarding 6666, 2024, or something else? Cole Hauser isn’t saying, but if his telegraphing of this subject is accurate, he and Sheridan must have entirely buried the hatchet on that alleged trademark scuffle between Hauser’s coffee brand and a Sheridan ranch. Hauser recently sat down with Country Living to discuss several subjects, including Free Rein coffee, and the actor seemed to drop a tidbit about the Rip Wheeler and Beth Dutton characters:

“I’m so focused on finishing Yellowstone the way it needs to be finished right now—well, just the show itself,” he reveals. “We’ll see where that leads, but I know that there’s some stuff on the horizon when it comes to Taylor’s ideas for Kelly Reilly and myself and some of the other cast. I’m excited to see where he goes creatively with that but right now it’s just, let’s finish strong; let’s do the best we can.”

At this point, these are simply “ideas,” as Hauser points out, but they will still be music to Yellowstone fans’ country-loving ears. The next show on the Sheridan horizon, however, will be Land Man starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hamm, and Demi Moore among a stacked ensemble cast. And as always, plenty more Sheridan news will be coming around the corner.

(Via Country Living)

After a slow burn to start, the last week of the Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef has been almost non-stop as the two stars are putting out diss tracks at a remarkable pace.

We are now eight songs removed from the start of it all — Kendrick’s verse on Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That”. While a number of other artists have tried to get involved to varying degrees of success, the focus has mainly been on Kendrick and Drake, but this weekend Metro Boomin made sure he was able to get in on the fun while on the international leg of his tour with Future. Metro enlisted the power of the internet to add fuel to the fire, releasing an insanely catchy “BBL Drizzy” beat and offering up a contest to rappers everywhere: best verse over the beat would get a free beat from him for their next project.

That’s quite the prize for someone trying to breakthrough so Metro’s mentions were flooded with submissions almost immediately, but the best thing to come from the “BBL Drizzy” instrumental has been basketball fans recognizing it sounds like the highest-grade basketball mixtape song and putting it over highlight tapes (the first I saw was this phenomenal Zion Williamson mixtape mashup).

My personal favorites are folks putting Kyle Lowry highlights over it, as there are a number of levels to it (Lowry’s friendship with Drake from playing in Toronto, his famously large backside, etc.), and the results are truly delightful.

The internet can be a terrible, toxic place sometimes, but on occasions like this, it reminds you there is still true joy to be found out there. All you need to do is give people a bit of inspiration and a free beat and they’ll do wonderous things.

Drake wrapped up his weekend by unveiling the latest product of his and Kendrick Lamar’s feud, “The Heart Part 6.” On the tune, he makes a claim about Lamar that could use some looking into.

Was Kendrick Lamar Molested As Drake Says On ‘The Heart Part 6?’

On the track, Drake raps (as Genius notes), “My mom came over today and I was like, ‘Mother, I–, mother, I–, mother–‘ / Ahh, wait a second, that’s that one record where you say you got molested,” later adding, “That’s why these pedophile raps is sh*t you so obsessed with, it’s so excessive.”

The line is an apparent reference to Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers song “Mother I Sober,” which features the following lyrics (per Genius):

“Family ties, they accused my cousin, ‘Did he touch you, Kendrick?’
Never lied, but no one believed me when I said ‘He didn’t.’”

“‘Did he touch you?’ I said ‘No’ again, still they didn’t believe me.”

“I asked my momma why she didn’t believe me when I told her ‘No’
I never knew she was violated in Chicago, I’m sympathetic
Told me that she feared it happened to me, for my protection
Though it never happened, she wouldn’t agree.”

On the song, Lamar never says that he himself was a victim of sexual assault, but does indicate that his mother was. So, the track does not provide conclusive evidence that Lamar himself was molested, despite Drake’s claim.

The point of a roast is to, y’know, roast someone. Ron Burgundy must have missed that note. On Sunday night, Netflix streamed The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady, a multi-hour comedy event where comedians — and Kim Kardashian, for some reason — cracked one-liners about the former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback. Or at least most of them did. Will Ferrell, reprising his character from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, mostly got lost in Brady’s dreamy eyes.

“Holy sh*t this man is gorgeous. Look at those cheekbones. That’s a million-watt smile right there… A person could get lost in those eyes and right now I am that person,” he said, according to People, before snapping himself out of the handsome trance. “Ron, pull it together. You’re a straight man. He’s making you question your sexuality. Stop looking at him. You’re here to make fun of him. Not fall in love. Concentrate.”

Ferrell-as-Burgundy, who said that Brady will “always be remembered as Eli Manning’s bitch,” later poked fun at the quarterback’s career.

“I never liked you Tom… in all my years of watching professional football, I never saw a more boring quarterback,” he said, joking that Brady “ruined football for all of us” and that watching the Patriots play “actually made me look forward to all the fun and laughter of a Bill Belichick postgame interview.”

It was a real missed opportunity to not sign off with, “And I’m Ron Burgundy. Go f*ck yourself, Tom Brady.” Falcons fans know what I’m talking about.

The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady is streaming on Netflix.

(Via People)

The first round of the 2024 NBA playoffs have come to an end. We know which eight teams are still alive in the race to win a championship, while eight other squads were unable to navigate the first round. It’s always a tough pill to swallow, but of course, not being able to make it through the first round is a bigger problem for some teams than others.

Today, we’re going to look at all eight teams that couldn’t win four times in seven games at the start of the postseason and try to answer a question: How disappointing is it that they couldn’t make it out of the first round? For some teams, like the Magic or the Pelicans, it wasn’t that big of a gut punch, and they have reason to believe brighter days are on the horizon. But for other squads, like the Bucks or the Suns, being unable to get out of the opening round is a flat-out disaster.

Milwaukee Bucks

It’s very easy to spin this Bucks exit as “Giannis Antetokounmpo was hurt and didn’t play, Damian Lillard was hurt and played, Khris Middleton was playing on a bad ankle,” and I’d get it. However, even when their guys were healthy, we saw that this Milwaukee team was not championship caliber in the slightest. They drew a team in the playoffs that owned them during the regular season, they fired a coach who was 30-13, then went 19-20 from that point on. Still, they had title-or-bust expectations, and boy, did they not meet them. Now, they will go into an offseason where they have to find a way to get better without too many avenues to do that.

How disappointing?: It’s a total disaster, but at least Giannis is still here.

Orlando Magic

Yes, the Magic will be bummed they blew a double-digit lead in Game 7 against the Cavaliers. Having said that, Orlando is in a really nice position in the big picture, as their building blocks (namely Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs) are still on their rookie deals and they have stuff to go make a big swing via a trade, along with a bit of cap room in case they want to fix some problems in free agency. They have to find a way to boost their offense — your friends at Dime would love to see them get a veteran point guard who can make things run smoothly on that end of the floor, a la Mike Conley — but generally, they were playing with house money this year. Expectations will be raised going forward, but for now, this was a learning experience for an ascendant team in the Eastern Conference.

How disappointing?: Not in the slightest, because brighter days are on the horizon.

Philadelphia 76ers

Like the Bucks, injuries (i.e.: two injuries to Joel Embiid) kept them from reaching their ceiling. They were excellent before Embiid hurt his knee, but he was clearly not right and tried to work his way back into playing shape during the series against the Knicks, and that’s before you get to him dealing with Bell’s palsy. There’s a major silver lining in seeing that Tyrese Maxey is a stud — he is about to make a ton of money in an extension this summer — but they could have beaten New York and now go into an offseason where they have to basically rebuild their entire roster. There certainly was a chance for them to finally make it to the Eastern Conference Finals, which makes this a tough pill to swallow. Having said that, if they can manage Embiid’s knee going forward and Maxey continues on this trajectory, they got to see during the playoffs that they finally have the 1-2 punch that perfectly compliments one another they’ve coveted for Embiid’s entire tenure.

How disappointing?: Any missed opportunity with Embiid really hurts, but by Sixers standards, this wasn’t that bad.

Miami Heat

It’s hard to be too upset at how things turned out if you’re the Heat. Yes, they want to compete every single year, but going into a series against Boston without Jimmy Butler, Josh Richardson, or Terry Rozier, and then having Jaime Jaquez Jr. get hurt before it ended, is just brutal. This was not an especially good team that went into a series shorthanded against the best team in the league and took a game off of them. They have aspirations of doing great things, but managed to win a game despite bringing a knife to a bazooka fight. This offseason has the potential to get strange depending on what happens with Butler, but as for how this playoff run went, well, that’s about right.

How disappointing?: With that many injuries, it can’t be too disappointing.

Los Angeles Clippers

We’re at the point where Kawhi Leonard’s inability to stay healthy is a feature, not a bug. It’s hard to shake the feeling that something big has to happen in Los Angeles this offseason — Paul George is a free agent, as is James Harden, and who knows what Steve Ballmer might have up his sleeve ahead of the team’s move to the Toilet Palace. If they stay healthy, maybe they beat the Mavericks, and then get to battle against an inexperienced Thunder team. Instead, we got the latest high-profile playoff flop by perhaps the team most desperate in the entire NBA to get over the hump. Only this time, they couldn’t even make it out of the first round.

How disappointing?: Pretty bad, and how they navigate the existential crisis that is coming to define this era of Clipper basketball will be fascinating to watch.

Phoenix Suns

If you ask Mat Ishbia, everything is great. If you ask literally anyone else, this was a travesty. Phoenix gave up anything and everything it had to put together a basketball team that got the 6-seed in the Western Conference and got swept in a series against an ascendant squad in which they lost three games by double-digits. Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal are getting older, and they’re locked into a team built around those two, Devin Booker, Jusuf Nurkic, and Grayson Allen without all that many avenues to get better. Just about everything about this year went wrong, with a first round playoff sweep being the icing on the cake.

How disappointing?: The worst of the bunch. Just an all-time flop by a franchise that eyed competing for a championship this year.

Los Angeles Lakers

Well, the coach got fired, so, that’s not great. Ultimately, getting bounced in the first round looks bad because it’s the Lakers and LeBron James is getting closer and closer to retirement, but look closer and it’s not that big of a travesty. Denver is just a better team — it took two buzzer-beaters in Denver by Jamal Murray to put them away! — while Los Angeles had a solid (albeit not great) roster that won 47 games, the second-most of any LeBron team in L.A. This situation is similar to Miami’s, where the expectations were set more by the front of the team’s jerseys than anything else. Unless LeBron decides he wants to retire because he was so disappointed that they only won the In-Season Tournament and took a measly one game off of the defending champs that swept them last year, it’s probably not a huge deal. Still, the Lakers had expectations of doing more and they did not, and now, they’ll enter an offseason where they need a new coach and will almost certainly look for some short of roster shakeup.

How disappointing?: Title-or-bust expectations met a team that was not nearly good enough to have those expectations, but it still stings.

New Orleans Pelicans

Can losing a playoff series without Zion Williamson against the 1-seed be a big deal? It happened in such a way that there are questions that need to be answered, particularly when it comes to Brandon Ingram’s long-term future with the team when they have Trey Murphy and Herbert Jones, but unless you want to argue that they should have taken a game or two off of a young and inexperienced Thunder team, it’s just hard to be too riled up about this one.

How disappointing?: Probably a solid 1/10.

As Rihanna fans keep waiting for new music, the multi-hyphenate superstar continues to tend to her other ventures. Fenty Beauty recently launched its Soft’Lit Naturally Luminous Foundation, and now Rihanna has dropped a new Savage X Fenty promo video.

In the 15-second clip — which Rihanna captioned “looking for nudes” — shared yesterday (May 5), she models nude lingerie (specifically, the Signature Script Underwire Teddy) from the brand’s Signature Script collection. In a voiceover, she explains, “I was desperate for a nude. Like, I go in between nudes when I get tan or when I’m a little paler. It’s hard to find a nude you can carry through in that range of shades, and I found mine. Signature Script.”

Meanwhile, in a recent interview, Rihanna looked back some some bold fashion choices she’s made, saying, “I’ve done so much sh*t in my life. I’ve had my nipples out, my panties out. But now, those are the things which, I guess as a mom and an evolved young lady — emphasis on ‘young’ — there are things I feel like I would never do. Like, ‘Oh my God, I really did that? Nips out?’”

She also just sparked pregnancy rumors after some people thought they spotted a sneaky maneuver in a video.

Chance Perdomo was already beloved to viewers of Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina before he appeared as Supe Andre Anderson on Gen V. His rising-star status was cut short on the eve of second-season filming for The Boys spin off when the cast and crew learned of Chance’s death in a motorcycle accident at age 27. That news surfaced in late March, and producers delayed production “indefinitely” and are now circling back to discuss how the show will proceed.

In a statement, producers wrote that Chance’s role will not be recast despite Andre figuring prominently into the overall story, and the show will rewrite the storylines and push production back until May:

“As we continue to navigate the tragic loss of Chance Perdomo, everyone at Gen V is determined to find the best way to pay respect to his memory. We won’t be recasting the role, because no one can replace Chance. Instead, we have been taking the time and space to recraft our season 2 storylines as we begin production in May. We will honor Chance and his legacy this season.”

Chance’s character appeared in the final season-finale scene where he and his college classmates found themselves in a medical facility, which may or may not have been The Woods. However, filling his shoes would have been impossible as producers have communicated, hence the decision to recraft the group’s stories. With that said, Perdomo’s absence will surely be felt by viewers, cast, and crew alike.

Forget “Espresso.” The song of the summer is “Do Not Diddle Kids.” Over the weekend, Drake released “The Heart Part 6,” his latest response to Kendrick Lamar‘s endless barrage of diss tracks. “Only f*ckin’ with Whitneys, not Millie Bobby Browns, I’d never look twice at no teenager,” he raps, a response to Lamar accusing him of being inappropriate with underage girls, including the Stranger Things actress (“Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor”).

“Nah Drake” started trending on social media following the release of “The Heart Part 6,” as did a clip from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. In the season seven episode “Frank Reynolds’ Little Beauties,” Frank (Danny DeVito) asks Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Charlie (Charlie Day), and Mac (Rob McElhenney) to help him write a song about how he does not “diddle” kids.

Frank’s proposed lyrics to “Do Not Diddle Kids”:

Do not diddle kids, it’s no good diddlin’ kids

I wouldn’t do it with anybody younger than my daughter, not little kids, gotta be big

Older than my wiiiife, older than my daughter

As Mac points out, “There is no quicker way for people to think that you are diddling kids than by writing a song about it!” A certain someone did not get the message.

“Oh my god. Drake’s response was to actually make a song about he doesn’t diddle kids. ‘The Heart Part 6’ is literally the It’s Always Sunny scene,” one X user wrote, while another added, “Drake literally pulled a Frank Reynolds.”

You can see the reactions below

We already know that Madonna is one of the biggest stars in the history of music, but her latest feat provides further evidence: On May 4, Madonna put on a free concert at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Per a press release from Live Nation, 1.6 million people attended, which sets the record for “the largest audience ever for a stand-alone concert by any artist in history.”

For reference, 1.6 million is greater than the population of Philadelphia, and Philly is the sixth most populous city in the United States. Also for reference, Coachella averages about 125,000 daily attendees.

According to this Wikipedia list, Madonna’s show is No. 6 on the all-time list of the most-attended concerts. However, all the concerts ahead of Madonna were part of some larger event/occasion/observation, so Madonna does indeed claim the title of biggest stand-alone concert. The previous record holder was The Rolling Stones, who performed to 1.5 million people, also at Copacabana Beach, in 2006.

Leading that larger list, though, is Rod Stewart, who performed for an estimated 3.5 million people — again, also at Copacabana Beach — in 1994. After him are Jean-Michel Jarre (3.5 million); Jorge Ben Jor (3 million); Jean-Michel Jarre again (2.5 million); Antonello Venditti (1.8 million); the collective of AC/DC, Pantera, Metallica, The Black Crowes, and E.S.T. (1.6 million); and then Madonna.