LeBron James arrived in Las Vegas for USA Basketball camp ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Friday, as a stacked Team USA roster sets its sights on a golf medal run.

His eldest son, Bronny, will join him in Vegas soon as he begins his NBA career as part of the Lakers Summer League team after signing a 4-year deal with the Lakers after being drafted 55th overall. While those two ply their trade in Vegas, Bryce James is enjoying his last summer in high school, and as any good teenager does, he’s killing time by poking some fun at his father. Bryce decided to go out back to the pool on a sunny Friday afternoon in L.A. and recreate LeBron’s “smiling through it all, can’t believe this is my life” post that became an enduring meme.

It’s pretty great work by Bryce, who followed that post up with a “iykyk” post on his story. I want to know how long he’s been thinking about recreating this, because the original post is six years old — LeBron posted it in response the the infamous “shut up and dribble” remarks. In any case, the moment of inspiration arrived on Friday and he nailed it.

The biggest free agent left on the market after a busy first week of deals is DeMar DeRozan, who has made waves this summer with appearances alongside Compton native Kendrick Lamar, and is looking to leave the Chicago Bulls as they set their sights on a franchise reset. The problem for DeRozan is, almost all of the teams that started this summer with cap space have used it up and the options for a sign-and-trade have gotten a bit thin.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, DeRozan is looking for $20-25 million per year, and a sign-and-trade has to be for three years, so it’d take a healthy commitment from a team to bring him in at that number. Beyond that, the Bulls don’t want to take back money (especially nothing long-term), per Woj, further complicating matters.

There will be suitors for DeRozan, but figuring out the terms of a deal is a bit tricky given these parameters. For example, there are teams like the Clippers and Lakers that would probably love to bring him home to L.A., but whether they’d want to do so at the cost of Norman Powell or Rui Hachimura to make it work financially is a very different question, especially since they’d need to find a third team to take themm in. Here we’ll look at a trio of possibilities for the former All-Star, including one complicated (but fun) deal to start.

Sacramento Kings

The Kings are the known suitor for DeRozan at the moment (he’s a good wing and they’re interested in all of them), but the trick is figuring out the third team to take salary back, as the Bulls apparently aren’t interested in taking on a contract like Harrison Barnes or Kevin Huerter. You could do a three-team deal and loop in Detroit or Utah and see if they’d be willing to eat a pair of contracts and, at $20 million per year, the Kings could make it work. That’s probably the route they will try to go, but let’s think bigger.

I would like to propose something bolder and more aggressive that I think would help four different teams achieve their goals this summer. The Orlando Magic can get to $8.6 million in cap space if they want to, and while they’ve done well this summer in adding Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, I think they still could use some shooting. If the Kings are ready to move on from Kevin Huerter, feeling he is repetitive with Keegan Murray and Malik Monk, that’s the kind of reserve shooter that would be very helpful for this Orlando team. You can make it work financially (according to the Fanspo trade machine) by having Orlando send Anthony Black to Chicago, where he can provide some point guard depth behind Josh Giddey and fit into their timeline entering his second season while the Magic seem to be accelerating faster than he may be able to keep up. While I understand the Bulls are looking to avoid being a tax team and don’t want to take back money, we can bring the Jazz in as the Lonzo Ball dump site, tacking on Portland’s lottery protected 2025 first (which rolls over all the way to 2028 before becoming a second) to facilitate that part of the deal. The Kings, meanwhile, could send Chris Duarte’s expiring and a future second the way of the Jazz.

All four teams would end up under the tax (I know, throw the parade) and I think it would actually push each of them towards their goal for this season. The Magic get another legit shooting threat and bolster their backcourt rotation. The Kings get the frontcourt upgrade they’ve been desperate for and still could look to move Harrison Barnes for something else. The Bulls get out of the tax and add a young guard. The Jazz add more picks to their stash and don’t cost themselves any future flexibility by eating two expirings.

The Trade
Kings get: DeMar DeRozan
Bulls get: Anthony Black
Magic get: Kevin Huerter
Jazz get: Lonzo Ball, Chris Duarte, 2025 lottery protected Portland first, future second

San Antonio Spurs

Perhaps DeRozan would consider a return to the Spurs, where he spent three seasons and had a lot of success playing with Gregg Popovich. They could give DeRozan the kind of three-year, ~$60 million deal he’s seeking and add another veteran to bring some structure alongside Victor Wembanyama after already adding Chris Paul. The Spurs are reportedly interested in Lauri Markkanen as well, but DeRozan wouldn’t preclude them from making other additions as they could flip Devonte’ Graham’s non-guaranteed deal, cash to cover the $2.9 million he’s owed if waived, and a second round pick to the Bulls to help them create a large trade exception.

The Trade
Spurs get: DeMar DeRozan
Bulls get: Devonte’ Graham, future second round pick, cash

Atlanta Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks cannot tank, because the San Antonio Spurs own too many of their first round picks. That means they really need to remain competitive even as they retool the roster, having already traded away Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans. While Dyson Daniels is a nice piece and they recouped some draft assets, they are severely lacking in terms of self-creation options besides Trae Young. DeRozan would certainly fill that need, and the Hawks have a few deals in the $22 million range that would be able to make the money work. Perhaps they could get the Jazz to take on Clint Capela’s expiring deal for the price of a couple seconds, and send a protected second the way of the Bulls, allowing Chicago to emerge unscathed financially from a DeRozan deal. Ideally, the Hawks would send out De’Andre Hunter, but with three years left on his deal, it’s very hard to figure out who would take that deal on without asking for first rounders that Atlanta won’t want to part with.

The Trade
Hawks get: DeMar DeRozan
Bulls get: Protected future second round pick
Jazz get: Clint Capela, two future second round picks

The Best New Hip-Hop This Week includes albums, videos, and songs from 42 Dugg, Eminem, and Killer Mike.

Holiday weeks are notoriously slow for new music releases, but that didn’t stop several hip-hop artists from taking advantage of the open window to get some new songs out there. Notably:

Eminem continued his rollout for The Death Of Slim Shady with the Spider-Man-influenced Michigan posse cut, “Tobey,” featuring Big Sean and BabyTron.

Quavo teamed up with Lana Del Rey after months of speculation to release “Tough,” the pop star’s latest hip-hop collaboration.

French Montana, Fabolous, and Fivio Foreign celebrated the impending launch of their Gotta See It To Believe It Tour with “To The Moon.”

Killer Mike addressed his Grammy Awards arrest in the reflective “Humble Me.”

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending July 5, 2024.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

42 Dugg — 4eva Us Neva Them

The Detroit rapper’s momentum may have stalled as a result of ill-timed incarceration, but that hasn’t stopped him from releasing what he’s calling his official debut album anyway. After his release earlier this year, Dugg hit the ground running, dropping videos for tracks like “Wock N Red” and “N.P.O.” featuring Sexyy Red. The album is 21 tracks with features from CMG labelmates Blac Youngsta and EST Gee, Jeezy, Lil Baby, Meek Mill, Rylo Rodriguez, and the aforementioned Sexyy Red.

P-Lo & Kool John — Moovie! 2: The Yequel

Bay Area indies P-Lo and Kool John link up for 13 tracks of post-hyphy lyrical shenanigans. This probably isn’t your project if you’re looking for a lot of introspection or thought-provoking wordplay; it’s an unabashed party album, with plenty of upbeat bops and bangers to keep you going dumb through the rest of the summer. Guests include fellow Norcal stalwarts ALLBLACK, Iamsu, Kamaiyah, and Nef the Pharaoh.

YTB Fatt — On Zai

West Memphis, Arkansas native YTB Fatt has been on my radar for a minute, slowly but steadily building a buzz in the Southern underground over the past year or so. That buzz has garnered him a few notable co-signs from fellow Dirty South artists like GloRilla, Lil Baby, NoCap, and Rylo Rodriguez, but on his latest, he handles business himself for the majority of the project’s 19 tracks.

Singles/Videos

Big Moochie Grape — “Fun” Feat. Young Dolph

The owner of one of the best stage names in all of rap music drops a video for a standout from his album, East Haiti Baby: Incarcerated, featuring a posthumous verse from his mentor, Young Dolph. It’s stunning how hard a new Dolph verse can still hit so long after his untimely death, and Mooch makes the most of the moment with this rib-bruising banger.

Chow Lee — “Practice!”

The “sexy drill” movement has been picking up steam lately — largely as a result of the efforts of rappers like Cash Cobain and Chow Lee. The latter makes a play on his new single, “Practice!,” with a video referencing one of the most infamous basketball-related memes of all time and verses addressing just how grimy the dating game can really be these days.

Kyle — “Dirty” Feat. Hit-Boy

Although he’s got a few years of rep as a lightweight pop rapper under his belt, Kyle zigs instead of zags here, employing a soulful instrumental produced by Hit-Boy to address one of his favorite topics — a defunct relationship whose end took him by surprise. Hit-Boy chips in a topical verse of his own, making this something of a departure for both artists — but not too much of one, as they sound completely cozy even outside their supposed comfort zones.

Caitlin Clark came into the WNBA with the reputation for having unlimited range, as we saw over and over again during her time as a standout at the University of Iowa that Clark was comfortable pulling up from the logo and knocking down threes. While she hasn’t quite been able to get into a rhythm from deep as a member of the Indiana Fever, we have seen her frequently launch from back there.

Clark has gotten into more of a rhythm from deep lately — she’s at 38.5 percent from downtown over her last 10 games after connecting on 29.7 percent of her threes in her first 11 games — and seeing as how she’ll participate in the WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix a little later this month, it’s fair to wonder if she’ll participate in the 3-Point Contest. Clark got asked about this on Friday, and, well, she didn’t say that she’s going to.

“Remains to be seen,” Clark said as a smile started to come across her face. “We’ll see. I don’t know. I’m excited, I dunno. I can’t give you guys every answer today.”

Now, I do not want to make any assumptions, but I think Caitlin Clark is going to participate in the 3-point contest. Regardless, Clark will be suiting up in the All-Star Game, which will pit a collection of the W’s best players against the team representing the United States at the Olympics in Paris.

Baseball is a terrific game for a number of reasons. One reason that is especially high on the list: The sport lends itself to completely insane things happening more frequently than just about any of the other major sports, as you’re perpetually one player misjudging what a baseball is going to do away from something ridiculous.

We got a really terrific example of how strange the sport can be during a recent game in the Korean Baseball Organization. Normally, when a player lays down a bunt with one out and runners on the corners, the objective is to drive in the player on third, get the runner on first over to second without an out, and sacrifice yourself as an out. Instead, a game between KT Wiz and Hanwha Eagles saw a bunt get laid down by an Eagles player, which led to total chaos and the extremely rare bunt home run.

Sometimes, you have to wonder if a higher power is involved in a Little League home run, and it really does seem like the baseball gods had their hands all over this one. The really fun part: Earlier in the game, the Wiz were also able to score on a Little League home run, although theirs did not come on a bunt getting laid down.

Sometimes, Jeopardy! viewers will do anything to take a swipe at Ken Jennings, but to be fair, sometimes he does step in it. The game’s host might not be the one writing the clues, but he sure does take the heat for any of the controversial calls, which unfortunately make him the punching bag for fans of things like correct answers and the truth.

The latest Jeopardy! blunder to be upsetting fans is from a clue this week in the category, Waterfalls. The clue read: “A Yosemite fall with a wispy ribbon of water that flutters in the air like diaphanous cloth bears the name of this marital wear.” One-day champion Kelly Proulx seemingly gave the correct answer, responding: “What is Bridalveil Falls?”

Jennings revealed it was incorrect. “It’s actually Bridalveil Fall, so we couldn’t take that.” This made the clue just more confusing, for both viewers and contestants.

According to the official Yosemite website, the waterfall is called Bridalveil Fall. The folks over at the Jeopardy Subreddit seem to agree that the ruling was unkind, even to Jeopardy’s standard. One user wrote, “I typically give long and wide deference to the judges, but f*ck the judges for that ruling. there is nothing pinning the clue to ‘fall,’ so she got the required information correct. that was positively disgusting.” Others called the rule “arbitrary,” while complaining about the inconsistencies in the games.

One fan seemed to offer an explanation that the clue was referring to an actual bridal veil, not the waterfall itself, but then that would still be just as confusing considering the category. It’s times like these when Alex Trebek’s calm demeanor during troubling times is truly missed.

(Via Parade)

The sky’s the limit for French Montana in the video for his new single “To The Moon” featuring fellow New Yorkers Fabolous and Fivio Foreign. The three Big Apple natives throw a block party for the ages in the video, complete with cars doing burnouts, dirt bikes popping wheelies, and dozens of locals vibing out to the boisterous instrumental.

The release of “To The Moon” highlights how hard-working French is — the Bronx rapper is just six months removed from the release of his last mixtape, Mac & Cheese 5, and yet, he’s already dropping new singles like there’s no tomorrow. “To The Moon” samples Jamaican dancehall titan Cutty Ranks’ 1991 staple “The Stopper (Main Attraction Remix),” and also kicks off the tour headlined by the three New York mixtape rap mainstays.

The Gotta See It To Believe It Tour begins August 1st in Wallingford, Connecticut, and runs through August 25th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can find tickets and more information here. The mini-tour wisely sticks to the Northeast, hitting mid-size venues that the artists are guaranteed to sell out — these veterans are showing the youngsters who have been trying to fill arenas how it should be done.

Watch French Montana’s “To The Moon” video featuring Fabolous and Fivio Foreign above.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is one of the biggest movies of all-time, but most people probably can’t name E.T.’s species (and those who can, like myself, wasted our precious youth on Star Wars lore). The same is true of A Quiet Place, which isn’t E.T.-level big, but A Quiet Place: Day One is doing just fine at the box office. Did you know the noise-hating aliens are called Death Angels? Because I didn’t, and neither did Day One star Lupita Nyong’o.

In a recent interview with Hits Radio, Nyong’o and co-star Joseph Quinn, who also played Eddie on Stranger Things, were asked which is scarier: Demogorgons or Death Angels? “What are Death Angels?” Nyong’o asked Quinn, who leaned over to inform her that’s what the A Quiet Place aliens are named. Without missing a beat, she replied, “It was day one. We didn’t know.”

Give her another Oscar.

To be fair, no one says “Death Angels” in any of the movies. As pointed out by X user @LiamMcI1996, “They’re called Death Angels in the first movie on one of the newspaper headlines in [A Quiet Place star and director John] Krasinski’s workshop. It’s a pretty blink and you’ll miss it reference though.” In a perfect society, no one would be filled with rage about Nyong’o not knowing this very minor piece of lore. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in. But at least a lot of people are on her side.

A Quiet Place: Day One is out in theaters now. There’s a good cat!

The nepotism discussion is quite exhausting and simply not as fun as the nepo dog talk, but somehow, we always hear from the nepo babies about how they don’t want to be called nepo babies. It’s that time again.

This time, it’s Emma Roberts, daughter of Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts and niece of Oscar winner/America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts, who insists that her family did not help her get a job in Hollywood.

In a new interview, Roberts references the New York‘s Nepo Baby guide from 2022, which she was conveniently left off. “Should I be offended?” she joked to FLAUNT magazine.

Roberts wasn’t necessarily upset, but she believes that the whole conversation is not worth her time. “It was a cheap shot to put all the celebrity kids on the cover of a magazine on babies’ bodies. It’s like maybe the ‘Nepo Baby’ conversation would’ve been a more interesting article written intelligently in Vanity Fair with nuance, but instead, it was kind of this viral hating-on-people thing,” she said. Honestly, she makes some points! But then she claims that her family name has not helped her.

“I’ve lost more jobs than I’ve gained from being in the business,” Roberts said. “People have opinions and sometimes maybe they’re not good opinions of people in your family. I’ve never gotten a job because of it, I know I definitely have lost a couple of jobs because of it.” American Horror Story is not one of those jobs, though maybe it should have been.

Roberts seems to be missing the point: nepo babies don’t just get handed roles, but they do have a huge advantage by being born into a family that has already been in the industry. Sure, she might think she lost a role due to her name, but there are actors out there who aren’t even given auditions. But it might be hard for Roberts to grasp that when she just played a woman who lies on her resume in order to become an astronaut.

(Via Flaunt)

July 4 turned out to be a hood holiday as Kendrick Lamar released his celebratory video for “Not Like Us.” Unlike its combative content, the video had a much more playful and boisterous vibe, with Kendrick bouncing around his hometown, Compton, accompanied by seemingly half the city’s residents.

The video brought more than good vibes, though; some fans are absolutely convinced that Kendrick not only danced on his rival Drake’s metaphorical grave, but also revealed the date of his next album’s release.

In one scene clip, Kendrick is seen wearing a blue windbreaker, with fans reading the lettering on its right breast as “8/8/2024.” As noted by the fan below, that date would fall on a Thursday, and thanks to the time difference between the coasts, technically a Friday release for New York would be on Thursday for Compton.

However, that theory was quickly shot down by more fashion-savvy users, who pointed out that the Martine Rose jacket actually reads “S/S 2024” — i.e., that it’s from the British-Jamaican menswear designer’s spring/summer collection.

Now, whether Kendrick even has an album coming out remains to be seen. Fans have been asking for a full release of the snippet from the beginning of the “Not Like Us” video, but let’s be honest: we still haven’t gotten the song from “Alright” video’s interlude, nearly 10 years later, so even if there was a new album coming out, that joint probably ain’t on it. You can watch the “Not Like Us” video above.