Category: News

Seeding is still greatly up in the air with just under two weeks remaining in the hotly-contested WNBA playoff race. Chicago and Las Vegas have likely cemented top-2 seeding — the pair separated by just one game, while the Aces find themselves one game up on the third-seeded Connecticut Sun. Meanwhile, the Suns are a game and a half up on the Mystics, which currently sit in fourth, and the Storm, currently in fifth. Those aforementioned two teams just split a two-game series over the weekend. Playoffs are clinched for the top-5 seeds, but who they’ll be playing and whether or not they’ll have homecourt advantage remains to be seen.

The WNBA playoffs are shifting to a new format this season, eschewing one game elimination games and moving to an 8-team postseason. The first round will feature best-of-3 series, while the semifinals and finals will be best-of-5.

This makes the mid-tier playoff push all the more exciting over the last 12 days of regular season play. The sixth seeded Dallas Wings (14-16) are only 2.5 games up on the 11th seeded Minnesota Lynx (12-19). This could get chaotic!

What’s the situation in which each team trying to make the playoffs finds itself? Why should you root for them to make it? And who are the standouts for each team? Let’s dive in.

(Before we get started: I’m not going to cover the Indiana Fever. They’re staunchly out of playoff contention, Kelsey Mitchell is out for the rest of the season, and things have been difficult in a rebuilding year. However, there’s real reason for excitement and optimism with a young group. Destanni Henderson is starting to get more run and this is a team still worth watching as they find themselves and continue to develop. The playoffs just aren’t in the cards.)

Dallas Wings

The Wings are weird, man. They have a really compelling roster with young talent, but their identity changes on a game-to-game basis, which is frustrating both from an analysis and development standpoint. Satou Sabally’s injury has really hampered this team as she’s an All-Star level talent. Teaira McCowan’s emergence in the frontcourt, meanwhile, has changed the dynamic of the team.

The Wings have made a concerted effort to feed her in the post and she’s responded by averaging 15.4 points and 8.7 boards per game across seven straight starts.

As mentioned with the identity shift, though, McCowan’s takeover has been part of the oddity. The Wings started the year built on an aggressive hard hedge, trapping defense, which Isabelle Harrison fit perfectly. She started the season playing at a career rate, but things got thrown out of rhythm as the Wings tried to incorporate more of the roster (they routinely play 11 players a game). I just am not sure what this team is supposed to be and they seem to go through stretches where they’re unsure, too. While the offense has found more stability playing through the post, it can become very one-dimensional and predictable. The defense has fallen off hard — ninth in the W over that seven game stretch, as McCowan brings size and some rim protection, but the roster isn’t built to play a deep drop consistently.

On the bright side, this team just played one of their better games of the season against the Atlanta Dream. Arike Ogunbowale played one of the best defensive games I’ve ever seen from her while also dishing the rock, making consistent playmaking reads, and generating high-quality offensive looks. It was perhaps the most encouraging game I’ve seen from her in regards to her ability to be the engine of a team and I (and the Wings) hope it’s a glimpse into what we can expect out of her going forward.

With six games remaining, the Wings are in an interesting spot where they can maintain their seeding with .500 play or fall out of the playoffs if they hit a rough patch. They play the Aces this week before finishing the last five games against other teams vying for playoff positioning. If last night’s victory against the Sky (with Ogunbowale sidelined) is any indication, the Wings feel like a playoff lock.

Phoenix Mercury

The Mercury have found some stability after a rough start, evening out to roughly .500 level play since the start of June. Most importantly: Free Brittney Griner until it’s backwards.

Skylar Diggins-Smith has been arguably the best guard in the league this season. She’s played phenomenal defense, created high level offense for others, and generated her own shots like few in the league can. Phoenix has found a bit of a base defensively, playing zone consistently to try and offset their lack of frontcourt size.

Brianna Turner’s rim protection and defense have been special. I don’t want to imagine this team without her.

Sophie Cunningham is having a breakout season, making a late push to put herself in the Most Improved Player conversation. She’s gunning from deep and solidifying herself as one of the sharpshooters of the league.

Phoenix has been strapped for depth this season, hurt substantially by injuries throughout, and have felt in flux all year. What makes it interesting is the potential they bring to a best-of-3 series. Yes, they’re undersized, but the shot-making they can bring on a night-to-night basis is difficult to match, particularly if they hit a hot stretch, something that can strongly influence a small sample of games. The Mercury led the league in three point attempts in July, and while they were only eighth in actual accuracy, the point remains.

Diana Taurasi’s heating up. Over her last five games, Taurasi was averaging 24.4 points a night while canning 41.7 percent of her 9.2 attempts from deep per game prior to exiting last night’s game before halftime. She’s getting to the line at an impressive rate. The bar is low, but her defense has been better as well.

Phoenix has another match-up with the Sun after last night’s loss before they round out their schedule with the Liberty, Lynx, Wings, and Sky. It’s not an easy schedule, but the Mercury are shaping up as the most likely sixth seed. Three games against the shot creation on this team? Good luck!

Los Angeles Sparks

The Sparks are in an incredibly weird spot right now as a team. Sitting at 12-18 and in the ninth seed, this season hasn’t exactly gone as planned. While I think some were too hasty in considering this team a title contender, being below .500 for much of the season has been unexpected. Last week, starting center and former All-Star Liz Cambage left the team. While the identity they built around her wasn’t exactly fruitful, it was still something they were leaning into. They’re trying to find themselves again and it hasn’t gone great.

I think there’s a happy medium where this team can really tap into playing a bit smaller, being aggressive and active on defense, and trying to grind out possessions with sets. Part of the issue though is the lack of shooting, which in turn really hurts the spacing.

Lexie Brown and Katie Lou Samuelson are both amid career years and have shot the lights out from deep. Kristi Tolliver is the only player on the team outside of that duo who shoots two or more threes per game above league average. That is a tough recipe for success!

Nneka Ogwumike is having an All-WNBA level season. She’s been otherworldly. But there isn’t a single lead guard on the team who can command an over on pick-and-rolls. Paint touches aren’t generated regularly, so the shot diet is extremely difficult to survive on. If L.A. is going to make a late season run and be competitive in the playoffs, the defense has to be better. We’ve seen glimpses, but it’s now or never.

What I’m most curious to watch for over these last few games: What happens with Chennedy Carter?

Carter was traded for in the off-season, one of the most intriguing prospects in women’s basketball, and she’s been far from prioritized by the Sparks. Again, part of that is roster constraints, but also, figure it out. The team needs to create easier offense and finding ways to make Carter and Ogwumike work in tandem should be a priority down the stretch. Those paint touches we mentioned? Yeah, Carter can create them in bunches.

The Sparks have six games remaining; the second game of a back-to-back series with the Liberty, and road games in Atlanta and Washington before closing out in L.A. with two games against the Sun and a season finale against the Wings. This schedule is not for the faint of heart! I’m really hoping the Sparks start to find their footing, and that sink or swim schedule is certainly going to induce some form of reaction.

Atlanta Dream

The Dream are on a four game losing streak headed into Wednesday’s match-up with the Indiana Fever, but make no mistake, this season has been a success. They came out hot to start the year, putting forth the best defense in the league across the first stretch of the season. The defense is still solid, but injuries and fatigue have sapped the Dream a bit as they’ve hit a rough patch.

The name to watch here is Tiffany “Tip” Hayes. She missed the early portion of the year after dealing with injury returning from overseas play, but she’s been the best player on the team and one of the best in the league since re-entering the starting lineup.

Averaging 16.2 points per game on 64 percent true shooting, Hayes is an immaculate bucket. The angles she creates from attacking off of second side actions are second to none, and few in the league finish at an above-average clip on tough looks in the interior like she does. Her slashing and drive game is unreal.

Everything about this team oozes fun to me. Watching a young team develop while being competitive is as good as it gets, as far as I’m concerned. What strides will rookie Naz Hillmon make as she keeps seeing extended run? How does Rhyne Howard continue to attack the interior and work on her budding game off the dribble as a shot creator? Does this team find their groove again and make that foray into the playoffs that felt distant before the season?

The Dream take on the Fever and Sparks at home before road games against the Lynx and Aces, and then close with a home and home against the Liberty. I feel good about Atlanta’s chances, but they really need to go over .500 in this stretch. A win against the Lynx, one of the teams that have risen most in the last month, is a must.

Minnesota Lynx

Speaking of the Lynx, IT IS SYLVIA FOWLES’ LAST SEASON. An absolute legend in the game, one of the all time greats, and still playing at an All-Star level, Fowles and the Lynx are looking for a proper send-off. After a wretched start to the season marred by injury, signings that didn’t work out, and poor play as a result, the Lynx are 9-6 since the start of June with the second-ranked offense in that time frame and a slightly above average defense.

Cheryl Reeve has sought to get the most out of a DHO and high-post oriented, movement-based offense, which has in turn gotten Fowles rolling downhill more often, making her that much harder to guard. Her fluidity still at her size and age is remarkable.

Aerial Powers went from one of the coldest stretches of her career to playing like an All-Star over the last month. In July, Powers averaged 16.9 points per game on 45.3/33.3/87.2 splits while getting to the line at a top notch rate.

https://twitter.com/MG_Schindler/status/1542141671219011591d

Her drive game has been essential for creating better looks for the Lynx, in tandem with Moriah Jefferson’s rejuvenation in Minnesota. From getting cut in Dallas after a myriad of injuries the past few season, to playing legit plus ball as a starter on a team vying for a playoff spot is one of the coolest and most rewarding stories of the season.

This isn’t last year’s team, but watching this group grow from subpar to legitimate playoff level squad has been pretty incredible this year. While they have played better of late and have arguably been the best of the 6-11 seeded group over the last two months, they can’t afford to drop games. They only have five games left and against stiff competition — facing the Storm (twice), Dream, Mercury, and closing with the Sun is about as tough of a draw as they could’ve asked for.

New York Liberty

The All-Star Break was not kind to the Liberty, as they dropped five of their last seven games after returning from the break before blasting the Sparks last night. The offense, which started to click in June, has fallen to 8th in the league over that time frame, and their 9th-ranked defense hasn’t helped their case either. Turnovers continue to plague the offense, they struggle to get to the line (dead last in percentage of points scored from the free throw line), and they just don’t generate easy points on the inside regularly.

It’s important to note how much injuries have impacted this team, as franchise star Betnijah Laney has only played four games, and starting wing Jocelyn Willoughby just returned from an injury a few weeks ago after going down in May.

On the bright side, Laney practiced with the team on Tuesday, and while a date hasn’t been set for when (or if) she will return, she is trending in that direction. Consistency has arguably been this team’s biggest struggle, and the last seven games will hopefully provide the runway this team needs to find something to propel them into next season.

While many expected them to make the playoff leap this season, where they’re at now is understandable to a degree, even if it’s disappointing from a team building standpoint, but next season will be pivotal. Sabrina Ionescu’s growth into a true star this season has been the most important part of their season, bar none.

Ionescu is developing into the player the Liberty envisioned, and that’s easily been the most fun thing to follow along with as the season has gone on for this team. Her two-player game with Natasha Howard is absolutely divine, as they form one of the better pick-and-roll duos in the league.

No schedule is “easy,” in essence, but the Liberty face the least difficult schedule to close out of this group of teams. It starts with a back-to-back against the Sparks, then the Mercury on the road, then a two-game series with the Wings in Dallas, and then a home-and-home with the Dream finishing up in New York at Barclays Center on the 14th. The Liberty, in a way, control their own fate, playing strictly against the teams seeded above them in that mid-tier while having the most games remaining in the league (tied with the Wings). Whether or not they can find something remains to be seen, but it’ll be worth watching what they can do along the way and whether or not they can muster a stretch to claw their way into the playoffs.

HBO is crafting another brutal, bloody, and binge-able TV show based on author George R.R. Martin’s writings but where Game of Thrones recounted the events of a host of books within his A Song of Ice and Fire series, House of the Dragon is based on one novel – and it’s likely to be a story even diehard GoT fans are unfamiliar with.

The civil war that erupted amongst members of House Targaryen is known as the Dance of Dragons and its build-up is detailed in Martin’s book Fire & Blood. Unlike the more linear storytelling of his previous series, Fire & Blood is written like a history tome, recounting the rise and fall of a dynasty via various historical accounts – not all of them unbiased – translated by a maester. In other words, it’s a complicated read and one that’s open to plenty of interpretation, which House of the Dragon creators Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik will likely take full advantage of.

Still, if you’re hoping to get a better sense of what this new Martin-inspired fantasy series is about, there are some storylines from the books that will probably make their way to the screen at some point.

The Line of Succession
The main catalyst for the eventual destruction of House Targaryen ends up being a pretty simple problem to solve in the books – if anyone had taken a second to write down some rules for succession, that is. Unfortunately, despite reigning for decades, they didn’t, and when Rhaenys Targaryen, a woman, was next in line to inherit the Iron Throne, it threw the whole dynasty into chaos. Eventually, her uncle Viserys was chosen by a council to become king in her stead, setting up a tradition of something called agnatic primogeniture – which basically means only men can run things in Westeros. And that becomes a big problem when Viserys, the current king, only has one heir — who happens to be a girl. Rhaenyra is intelligent, well-bred, and a dragon rider, but her gender is what causes even her own family members to question whether she has the right to rule once Viserys is gone.

Year of The Red Spring
This was a time period in Viserys’ waning rule that was marked by death and the fracturing of his house. It’s also where some have speculated House of the Dragon will pick up when the show begins. Viserys is a good man, but good men don’t make for great kings and he faces opposition on all sides when he refuses to name a male relation his heir over his daughter, Rhaenyra. Worse, plenty of people in his inner circle meet their untimely end during this year, some thanks to suspicious circumstances. From Velaryon’s allies to his own trusted Hand of the King, the Year of the Red Spring was marked by blood and bitter feuds amongst House Targaryen, ones Viserys just couldn’t keep in check.

The Small Council
We’ll be sad to lose Paddy Considine but that time will come at some point during House of the Dragon as it’s King Viserys’ death that really sets this civil war in motion. Well, his death, and how his wife handles the aftermath of it. In the books, Alicent Hightower is a beautiful woman nearly a decade Rhaenyra’s senior who’s already given the king sons she believes should inherit the Iron Throne. To make that dream a reality, she gathers together some loyal followers in a secret small council meeting immediately after the passing of her husband and the events that take place during it are probably what inspired GoT’s eventual Red Wedding massacre. Without spoiling too much, Alicent makes sure her son’s inheritance can be secured by cutting deals (and throats) with some of her step-daughter’s most loyal allies – a betrayal that should sting even worse on screen because the show has aged up Rhaenyra and given the two women a strong friendship grown since childhood that makes Alicent’s power play even crueler.

The Blacks vs. The Greens
Another memorable moment in the books that signals the beginning of the end of House Targaryen happens during a tournament held sometime around the Year of the Red Spring. With tensions between Princess Rhaenyra and Queen Alicent running high, the two women make an appearance at court sporting very distinct colors. Rhaenyra wears a stunning dress in her house colors of black and red while Alicent robes herself in green, the color of House Hightower. The animosity between the two was so clear at that point that their followers started identifying themselves by the colors of the women’s dresses, hence “Blacks” and “Greens.” It’s basically the medieval version of Marvel’s Team Cap versus Team Iron Man.

The Battle at Harrenhal
Prince Daemon Targaryen becomes a powerful ally to his niece, Princess Rhaenyra, once she makes a play for the Iron Throne, even marrying her to strengthen his claim and boost support for the Blacks abroad. But, the same qualities that made Daemon a poor choice for king are what lead him to a duel to the death with his nephew and would-be usurper, Aemond Targaryen, at Harrenhal. Both were prolific dragon riders and both were hotheads which means, for much of the war, they chased each other around, trying to snag a kill that would ensure their side ultimately won. In the books, Daemon eventually grew tired of hunting his nephew and challenged him to a fight at Harrenhal on dragon’s back. We’ve seen Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen take on the Night King in the air before, but if House of the Dragon can pull off this spectacularly brutal brawl with more experienced dragon riders in charge, it’s likely to go down as one of the more impressive fight scenes to come from the fantasy series.

Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower had The Tonight Show audience screaming and Jimmy Fallon losing his mind after delivering a mashup that no one could’ve seen coming: Vecna singing Lizzo’s “About Damn Time.” Bower was on hand to talk about joining the Stranger Things cast as the crazy powerful dark wizard, who literally tore a hole in Hawkins to set up the Netflix series’ final season. However, Fallon had other plans in mind. Namely, making Bower recite famous lines using his Vecna voice.

After having Bower say Julia Roberts’ Notting Hill line, “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy,” and, “Jack, oh Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls,” from Titanic, Fallon teed Bower up to perform the Lizzo lyrics and it killed. The audience was clearly here for it and Fallon went nuts over how well Bower leaned into it.

As for how Bower came up with the Vecna voice, earlier in the interview, he revealed that it took him a bit to get it right, which was scary because he was hired only a month before the fourth season started shooting. Via Entertainment Tonight:

Bower sat behind co-star Millie Bobby Brown at the first table read, where his initial version of Vecna “started in this very kinda nasally area,” he said. “More like Freddy Krueger — and it just wasn’t landing. So I went home and worked on it, did a bunch of reference work for Hellraiser and Doug Bradley, particularly. It said that this deep, booming voice kinda comes out of the darkness and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, you can tell.’”

Clearly, Bower found his groove as Vecna quickly became a fan-favorite once Stranger Things 4 hit Netflix, and the actor is still getting used to the attention, particularly all of the “Vecnussy” talk out there. Kind of hard to prepare for that one.

(Via Entertainment Tonight)

The Bear will give us a second season, thank goodness. The show’s got viewers addressing each other as “Chef” out of respect, and there’s plenty of other useful jargon that has entered the public discourse, but what of Jeremy Allen White and his seeming onscreen addiction to not being able to leave Chicago? Well, this may or may not affect viewers’ lust for his Carmy character, but White has been asked to weigh in on the eternal question of which regionally favored pizza is the best. Spoiler alert: The Shameless veteran does not embrace all things Chicago.

White’s been doing the rounds while the show still reverberates around the Internet’s nether regions, and although he recently told Eater Chicago that he’s “happy to help” restaurant workers get down, he’s also pushing back on some of his own kitchen-based appeal. Here’s what White told InStyle about a very pressing issue:

Chicago-style hotdog or deep-dish pizza? You have to choose one.

Deep-dish pizza is disgusting. That’s the easiest question I’ve ever been asked.

Spoken like a true New Yorker.

It doesn’t make any sense. It’s so doughy. Get it out here. I don’t need it.

Oh man, carb lovers everywhere will be reeling. And if he doesn’t dig Chicago pizza, he surely doesn’t enjoy Detroit pizza either. Will this hurt or help his “Chef” status among The Bear devotees? I’m slightly disappointed (but will recover) and not alone.

(Via InStyle & Eater Chicago)

Young Jesus has announced a new album, set to arrive this fall. The album, titled Shepherd Head, marks the group’s sixth album, and was recorded within the span of a week.

Young Jesus crafted the album following the death of a close friend of the band’s lead vocalist, John Rossiter. With Shepherd Head, Rossiter utilized found sounds and voice memos when creating tracks.

“I would pitch things down an octave and add strange reverb,” said Rossiter in a statement. “If a dog barked, I would isolate it and make it part of a beat. I recorded a voice singing on the street just walking by a storefront and autotuned it. Some guitar parts are just mistakes from voice memos that I chopped, stitched, and looped. I used sounds of rivers, people walking, friends talking. It was a lot of fun. I didn’t care about the fidelity of the recording. Whatever wanted to be in came in.”

Ahead of the album, Young Jesus has released a new song called “Ocean,” which features Tomberlin. In the song, found sounds, like leaf crunches, can be heard in the background of bassist Marcel Borbón Peréz’s hypnotic bassline and Peter Martin’s looped percussion. The song’s accompanying video contains scenes from Coney Island in New York City.

Check out “Ocean” above and the Shepherd Head tracklist and cover art below.

1. “Rose Eater”
2. “Ocean” Feat. Tomberlin
3. “Johno”
4. “Shepherd Head”
5. “Gold Line Awe”
6. “Satsuma”
7. “Believer” Feat. Arswain
8. “A Lake”

Shepherd Head is out 9/16 via Saddle Creek. Pre-save it here.

Rina Sawayama has dropped the visual for “Hold The Girl,” the title track of her upcoming sophomore album. In the video, directed by Ali Kurr, Sawayama she is seen in an old house, lamenting her personal pain, before climbing to a roof and jumping off. She lands safely in a bed, and is later joined by a crew, dancing in the house, before making a grand escape.

The song itself is a letter to a younger version of Sawayama, reminding her to give herself grace and care, as she grows and continues to make mistakes. “Hold The Girl” is one of the album’s many songs she wrote over the past year-and-a-half, dealing with the loneliness and heartache of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“‘Hold The Girl’ was the first song I wrote for the record at the end of 2020 — I had gone to therapy and had a revelation, so I decided to write this song… that was the start of it. I was crying before going into the studio to write about it,” said Sawayama in a statement accompanying the release of the single.

Check out the video for “Hold The Girl” above.

Hold The Girl is out 9/16 via Dirty Hit. Pre-save it here.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Atlanta’s Music Midtown Festival, which was scheduled for September 17-18 and headlined by Fall Out Boy, Future, Jack White, and My Chemical Romance, was canceled due to a conflict between organizers’ safety standards and Georgia’s Safe Carry Protection Act. Basically, because the state law allows citizens to carry firearms on public land and the festival’s venue, Piedmont Park, is a state park, organizers were not able to ban guns on festival grounds. Clearly, this was a pretty untenable situation, and rather than break the law, the organizers canceled the event.

This move was guaranteed to disappoint and anger plenty of Atlanta residents and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has seized the opportunity to reproach her incumbent opponent Brian Kemp for the results of his “shameful” policies. In a statement, she said:

Brian Kemp’s dangerous and extreme gun agenda endangers the lives of Georgians, and the cancellation of Music Midtown is proof that his reckless policies endanger Georgia’s economy as well. It’s shameful, but not surprising, that the governor cares more about protecting dangerous people carrying guns in public than saving jobs and businesses in Georgia. In dire economic times for so many Georgians, this cancellation will cost Georgia’s economy a proven $50 million. This means that small businesses and workers who rely on events like Music Midtown and their tremendous economic impact have now lost incomes that help put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

The third-year breakout: it happens every NBA season.

Last year, Ja Morant made an All-NBA leap and earned Most Improved Player. Darius Garland became an All-Star. Tyler Herro won Sixth Man of the Year. Two years ago, Deandre Ayton and Michael Porter Jr. enjoyed sizable steps forward. In 2019-20, Jayson Tatum and Bam Adebayo emerged as bona fide stars.

There will assuredly be more folks added to this lengthy history by the time next April rolls around. Among those candidates is Chicago Bulls swingman Patrick Williams, the fourth overall pick in 2020 who owns just 93 career games to his name and showcases eye-popping sequences like these.

Playing for a retooled Bulls team that notched its first playoff appearance since 2016-17, Williams was sidelined for nearly five months last season with a left wrist injury. The 6’7 forward missed out on critical experience to assimilate himself to a new cast of teammates, ones who accentuated a winning environment after Chicago notably upgraded its roster from Williams’ rookie season.

Now, the 20-year-old is healthy and entering a stable situation in his third year following two seasons of constantly evolving rosters. The degree to which the Bulls factor prominently into the upper echelon of a crowded Eastern Conference is linked, in some capacity, to Williams’ development.

Their offensive centerpieces, DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and Nikola Vucevic, are all squarely in their prime or have potentially bid adieu to it already (Vucevic scoring resurgence, please). Their defensive anchors are 28-year-old Alex Caruso and 24-year-old Lonzo Ball. Both have historically struggled with injuries and Ball’s status for the upcoming season, after missing 42 games with a knee issue last year, sadly remains murky.

By virtue of the Vucevic deal, the Orlando Magic own Chicago’s 2023 first-round pick. In acquiring DeRozan via sign-and-trade, it also sent a future first-rounder to the San Antonio Spurs. Point being: This is a good team, albeit one lacking many future assets to enhance a roster founded on players in their prime and/or ones saddled with injury concerns. Williams, along with 22-year-old Ayo Dosunmu, are currently the lone rotation players where substantial steps are presumably baked into their imminent development.

Dosunmu impressed mightily last season, especially for a second-rounder, en route to an All-Rookie nod. Yet he will likely play a reserve role, while Williams should start at the 4 and has hinted at much of the intrigue that rendered him a top-five selection fewer than two years ago.

Prior to the draft, the elevator pitch for Williams’ allure was a 3-and-D big who offered weak-side rim protection and could blossom into a supplementary creation role amid the proper setting. Through 93 career games, he’s continued to display the inklings of that skill package and optimism should rein abundant among his proponents.

He’s drilled 41.3 percent of his 167 regular-season triples and is particularly proficient on spot-up reps, having buried 41.9 percent of his 148 catch-and-shoot looks. The issue, though, is his approach as a long-range shooter belies his small-sample merits. He’s often hesitant on the catch, bypassing quality attempts and surrendering the advantages created by DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic, and co.

Chicago ranked fourth in three-point percentage last season (36.9 percent), but just 30th in rate (.332). Williams seems like a perfect encapsulation of this dichotomy. He’s leaving opportunities on the table in an offense spearheaded by dudes who can reliably fashion those opportunities for him. Through two seasons, according to NBA.com, he’s logged 167 pull-up twos and 148 catch-and-shoot threes. That is not an ideal relationship. At the very least, you’d hope they’re flipped. Assuming more confidence in his ability to hit triples should be a priority moving forward.

Williams’ three-point rate across five playoff games vaulted from .265 to .447, so the hope is he can maintain that sort of volume. Optimally blending his dribble-drive game with shooting off the catch will elevate his offensive impact to enticing levels as a connective ancillary option. He’s showcased a rather intriguing slashing arsenal, finding teammates as a driver, concisely rising for pull-ups, or leveraging his vertical pop to score at the rim.

With his intersection of size, strength, midrange touch, cutting savvy, and live dribble passing chops, he’s quite the threatening player reading tilted defenses, especially if he grows more assertive. Yet shrewd opponents will anticipate the drive or pull-up and short-circuit their closeouts to contain him.

Williams being less premeditated or timid in these situations could help raise his knack for maintaining or extending advantages. When the opposition does grant his jumper respect, he can puncture them in a variety of manners and Chicago’s offensive pillars know how to generate openings for him.

Although the Bulls often deployed him as a ball-screener last season, it felt like he rarely was afforded touches in those scenarios. I’d like to see his pick-and-roll partners look to feed him on short-roll chances more often because he really can be an excellent weapon working downhill from an advantage.

Among absences, lackluster off-ball scoring (save for LaVine and Ball’s half-season), and middling floor-spacing around the core, Chicago’s unit underwhelmed to a 13th-ranked offensive rating in 2021-22. Williams is the sort of player who, if he fine-tunes some important habits, can be a malleable release valve to help maximize talented offensive personnel.

He moves well off the ball, both on relocations around the arc and cutting into vacant space. He’s a good spot-up shooter who sports multifaceted utility putting the ball on the deck. Heightened aggression, flexibility of approach, and willingness to fire off the catch — assuming he continues to be an excellent spot-up shooter — would morph him into a highly valuable and dynamic background player in Chicago’s offense. These are not easy, overnight alterations, but they are worthwhile ones that may give his squad a chance to scale the Eastern Conference ranks.

The bedrock of the Bulls’ defense is Caruso and Ball, likely the NBA’s chief defensive backcourt duo. Once one (and eventually both) was relegated to the bench for an elongated period, their defense cratered. Fueled by a vigorous, turnover-heavy style, they load the gaps and aim to secure takeaways. As such, that exposes them to risk-taking and breakdowns; the hope is the backline will reliably cover in those instances.

Vucevic, while he touts some defensive strengths (rebounding, lively hands), is not a rim protector or paint enforcer. Williams, equipped with suction cup hands, vertical bounce, awareness and a 7-foot wingspan, is an adept weak-side helper on the interior. Last season, on shots within six feet of the hoop, he held opponents 2.3 percent below their average as the primary defender. A season earlier, that mark stood at 3.2 percent. Both numbers are good for any non-center, let alone someone yet to legally purchase a drink and fresh off their initial two NBA seasons.

From my vantage point, the most pronounced and encouraging aspect of his NBA maturation thus far are the strides he’s cataloged athletically. Pre-draft, he was billed as a pretty stiff athlete who failed to move fluidly laterally. Defending in space — i.e. closeouts or on the perimeter — were arduous tasks at Florida State.

Since then, Williams’ flexibility has improved substantially, which manifests in his screen navigation, on-ball defense, and his drives (on the second video compilation included above, note how he slithers around some defenders to score). Controlling his own momentum after shifting weight one direction is still a concern. He’s prone to ceding driving lanes if a fake or jab sends him a certain way. Guards and speedy initiators are his nemesis.

But he can actually be an irritant against wing or strength-based creators and his movement skills are vastly better than from his collegiate tenure. He’s much more flexible and comfortable in space, even if further refinement is required. Whether he’s approaching the upper limit of his physical development in this regard is not my expertise, yet his headway should be encouraging.

Williams actualizing the frequent previews of a vital skill-set for Chicago this upcoming season can help inform its ceiling. His offense is fascinating, yet inconsistent. His defense is promising, yet not fully formed. The gulf between each of those terms is not impossible to bridge.

The carryover from last year’s rotation should be considerable. Cohesion and structure are accomplices in every young player’s development. Williams has rarely enjoyed that luxury in the NBA. A season to test out, discern, and study the role asked of him is welcomed experience he could parlay into a third year leap.

There are an assortment of non-stars who can swing the fate of teams out East. Williams, more than three weeks shy of his 21st birthday, is among them, fair or not at this stage of his brief NBA stay. Something tells me his age-21 season is gonna be a good one regardless. If or when it is, the Bulls’ fortunes may follow suit.

There does seem to be an inherent problem with any film series that starts out clean and simple, then decides to get into its own lore. This isn’t to say lore, on its own, is bad. Lord of the Rings is pretty much all lore. It sells itself on lore. But it’s when movies that are clean and simple start diving into its own origins, which take us further and further away from what made the first movie successful. Alien is a perfect horror movie. I never really needed to know how the Xenomorph was genetically engineered by an android. Even the first Star Wars is, in retrospect, a surprisingly simple movie that never really stops to explain much of anything. And now we get a lot of explanation drawn out over many weeks.

Rewatching the first Predator, directed by John McTiernan, it’s kind of funny we even get that opening shot of the Predator in space coming to visit Earth. That’s about all the explanation we ever get about this guy: he is not of the world. And there it is, coming to Earth for a hunt, probably with the same excitement as your Midwestern family member, who likes to wear camouflage in his spare time, headed out to the woods for a weekend. From that moment on, it’s just about the gruesome Predator and the people it is hunting, which eventually ends with Dutch, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, barely escaping after the Predator blows itself up with a self-destruct feature.

At the end of Predator 2 (which is almost a good movie), after Danny Glover’s Mike Harrigan defeats the Predator on the Predator’s own spaceship (not the same Predator from the first film), he’s surrounded by numerous other Predators. One of the Predators, with no explanation, hands Mike a pistol from 1715 and walks off. On this ship, we can also see a Xenomorph skull from Alien. Now, the more interesting part of all of this was the pistol. The Xenomorph was kind of put in there as just a joke by the special effects team that also worked on Aliens. But the future of Predator would now be tied to fighting Xenomorphs and diving into its own, not very interesting, lore. While the pistol aspect was just ignored … until now.

Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey (which premieres on Hulu this Friday and won’t be in theaters basically for contractual reasons) takes the concept of the pistol, takes us back to 1719, and makes a down and dirty Predator movie that rivals the first movie as a simple film about a Predator on a hunt. At one point we see the Predator fight a bear. The bear holds its own, for awhile.

The story focuses on Naru (Amber Midthunder) a Comanche warrior – who, for what she lacks in strength, she makes up for with her cunning hunting tactics – is unrelentingly picked on by other members of her tribe for wanting to be a warrior when they think she should stay back with the rest of the tribe while the men hunt. We are also introduced to a group of fur traders (yes, this is where the pistol comes in) who do not get along with the Comanche and vice versa. The Predator, for his part, doesn’t seem to care too much about the social implications of either group and view all of them the same way: his prey.

It’s not really too much of a surprise that this movie will come down to a battle between Naru and the Predator. What is surprising is the techniques Naru uses. I mean, look, if Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t beat the Predator with strength alone, Naru will also have to come up with another idea. And the weaknesses we’ve learned about the Predator from the past films all come into play here as Naru starts to analyze her enemy and figure out how to defeat it.

Another surprise here is how gory Prey turns out to be. There’s a reason this is going to Hulu and not Disney+. Yeah, sure, I was a little worried Disney would want the violence dialed down a notch or two. But this is a very violent movie. If Disney did hope the gore would be dialed back, the Predator did not listen. But to be fair, that’s kind of the Predator’s thing, to ignore requests like, “mind dialing it back a bit?”

Let’s hope Prey starts a new wave of really great, back-to-basics Predator movies. I do hope they wind up back in theaters. I got to see this in a theater and it played really well. And I do hope they remain small in scope and story like the original Predator and Prey (and, fine, some of Predator 2). I don’t want to know anything more about the Predator. I know enough. I know, in its free time, it wants to kill people. Great. Set it loose and start the fun.

‘Prey’ will stream via Hulu on August 5th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Rudy Giualiani is not having an easy go of things right now. On top of still dealing with the $1.3 billion lawsuit filed against him by Dominion Voting Systems, for spreading the Big Lie, he has had his license to practice law in both New York and Washington, DC. suspended. Then there are the heart problems—and who can forget the light tap on the back heard around the world? Now Rudy’s got another headache to deal with in the form of an ex-wife who is demanding more than a quarter-million dollars from her former husband to help pay for the Palm Beach, Florida house they shared — but she took in the divorce.

As Page Six reports, Judith Giuliani — who was married to the former New York City mayor for whopping 16 years, from 2013 to 2019 — filed papers against her ex with the Supreme Court of the State of New York and claims that Rudy has failed to pay $262,000 that was part of their divorce settlement, which was specifically to be used to pay for their house in Palm Beach, a housekeeper to clean said house, and private club fees. You know, just the everyday necessities.

As Page Six writes:

In a sworn affidavit, Judith accuses Rudy of owing her $140,000 for their South Lake Drive, Palm Beach, property alone. The lux condo was listed on the market in 2019 for $3.3 million. It didn’t sell, but Judith claims in the documents that Rudy “is required to pay me $200,000 regardless of whether or not the property has been sold” per the divorce agreement, and she claims that he’s only given her $60,000.

While the agreement stipulated that they each needed to pay their own dues at their country club, because Rudy neglected to pay his half of said dues, Judith had to “in order to remain in good standing with the clubs,” per court papers.

While their divorce settlement also stipulated that Rudy needs to cough up $5,000 per month for Judith to have some kind of help—be it a housekeeper or a personal assistant—she says in the lawsuit that Rudy “has made inconsistent and sporadic payments to me, including a $10,000 check in June 2021 that was returned due to insufficient funds.”

It’s hardly a secret that Rudy is facing a litany of legal issues himself. In fact, he set up his own legal defense fund in the past that was such an abject failure, it was forced to shutter. Despite his financial woes, Judith is confident Rudy’s got the dough to pay her and has demanded he hand it over immediately.

(Via Page Six)