Category: News

After a rough first two weeks of camp that included two players having to withdraw and two rather stunning losses to Nigeria and Australia, things started looking up for the USA men’s basketball team to end their time in Las Vegas when they had their best performance yet against a very good Spain squad on Sunday.

However, the good times were short-lived as on Monday, the team was back to being down a man for their flight to Tokyo after Zach LaVine was placed into health and safety protocols, as announced by USA Basketball.

The good news is that this seems to be a situation in which they believe LaVine can clear protocols in time to rejoin the squad, but he becomes the third player to have to enter protocols so far for Team USA. Bradley Beal had to withdraw from the Olympics because of his situation, while Jerami Grant was able to clear protocols and return for Sunday’s game with Spain. This means the American men will land in Tokyo with just eight players, as Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday, and Khris Middleton are all still in the NBA Finals and LaVine now enters a quarantine period in Las Vegas prior to hopefully rejoining the team.

After profiling Pooh Shiesty and Blxst in the last two episodes of How I Blew Up, this week, Uproxx dives into the background of their fellow 2021 XXL Freshman from Pontiac, Michigan, DDG, who experienced his career peak this year with “Moonwalking In Calabasas” from his collaborative mixtape with Atlanta producer OG Parker.

In this episode, DDG explains how “there’s nothing to do in Pontiac but bullsh*t” and what led him to pursue creating YouTube videos as a career. He then explains why he made the transition from YouTube to recording his first handful of mixtapes and faced skepticism from fans who thought that he wasn’t taking music seriously — an obstacle he confronted by releasing a song literally titled “Take Me Serious.” Naturally, he also addresses the moment he knew “Moonwalking In Calabasas” was his biggest hit yet, and he ends the episode reflecting on his plans for the future, which include retirement by the age of 33.

In addition to appearing on How I Blew Up and the latest episode of UPROXX Sessions (performing his Die 4 Respect single “Hood Melody“), DDG is also the focus of Uproxx’s latest digital cover story, which you can check out here.

Watch the latest episode of How I Blew Up above.

Ever since Peyton Manning retired he has been the white whale of the NFL broadcasting world. Every network, save maybe CBS with Tony Romo, would throw aside their current top analyst to bring Manning on board, but to this point, he has refused to commit to a full-time spot in any booth.

There’s plenty of reason for Manning to say no. He isn’t in need of the money, and the time commitment of being on the road broadcasting games each week is clearly something he’s not interested in right now. Still, that hasn’t stopped the overtures and on Monday, ESPN — where Manning has hosted Peyton’s Places on ESPN+ since 2019 — announced they had finally gotten at least a little bit of their dream scenario.

The Monday Night Football booth is going to stay the same next year, with Steve Levy, Brian Griese, and Louis Riddick back for a second season, but Peyton and Eli Manning will now have a presence on an alternate broadcast for 10 games per season for the next three years. The Monday Night Football MegaCast will air on ESPN2, with the Manning brothers and a yet-to-be-named host doing a broadcast remotely with special guests joining to talk about the game and tell stories, 10 Mondays a season.

It seems to be a compromise point between ESPN and Manning, who they’ve been effectively begging to join the MNF booth for years. Peyton shows his appreciation for the partnership with ESPN while getting to do a non-traditional broadcast that doesn’t require the travel and time commitment — while also embracing the more fun side of things that he so clearly prefers.

“This partnership with ESPN and The Walt Disney Company reflects an ongoing, shared commitment to offering fans fun, innovative content,” said Peyton Manning in a release. “ESPN+ has been a terrific partner for Omaha Productions as we built out The Places franchise and we’re excited to co-create a new MegaCast format that will have something for everyone.”

It’s going to be very interesting to see how the MegaCast performs, but the Mannings are as beloved as any figures in football and ESPN has had great success in the past with their MegaCast options for big college and NFL games. Now this becomes a staple, albeit one that still has a schedule to be figured out, and ESPN gets their hook a little further in on landing Manning for Monday Night Football.

The MegaCast will be launching the first three weeks of the season, meaning for Baltimore at Las Vegas, Detroit at Green Bay, and Philadelphia at Dallas, with the other seven games still to be determined.

Well, the first Capitol rioter was sentenced Monday after being charged with a felony for his role in the Jan. 6th insurrection, and people are not happy with how brief his prison term looks to be.

Paul Allard Hodgkins was the Florida native who breached the U.S. Senate chamber carrying a Trump flag earlier this year. While he wasn’t one of the main instigators of the MAGA assault, he is one of the hundreds of rioters who’ve been charged with lesser crimes related to that fateful day. Hodgkins cut a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to one count of obstructing an official proceeding — a crime that carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence — in exchange for a few lesser charges being dropped. Prosecutors asked that Hodgkins be sentenced to 18 months behind bars, but a judge ruled that while he played a role in the assault that would leave a “stain on the country for years to come,” that offense only warranted an eight-month prison sentence.

That’s right. A man who boarded a bus from Florida equipped with rope and latex gloves and took selfies with the QAnon Shaman after the mob he was part of vandalized a government building and began hunting down the lawmakers who worked there is only getting eight months behind bars.

Twitter is, in two words, not impressed.

(Via Associated Press)

Basketball players and rappers occasionally crossing into one another’s worlds is by no means a new trend. For years, some hoopers have viewed music as an interest to pursue when they’re not out on the hardwood, while rappers have viewed the basketball court as a place to go have some fun in between recording sessions.

In today’s Dime Breakdown, we decided to look at both sides of the coin. We start by highlighting a pair of NBA players who are two of the best on the mic right now. Of course, Damian Lillard is at the top of the NBA’s rap game right now, but there are plenty of other dudes on the come up. One of them, Sacramento Kings youngster Marvin Bagley III, has actually gotten into it with Dame (and, if we can be honest, came up short), but can still hold his own in the booth.

On the other side of things, we highlighted a pair of rappers who have game for days. J. Cole was an easy mention here, as he’s coming off of a spell as a professional basketball player in the Basketball Africa League earlier this year, while NLE Choppa is as bright a star on the court as he is in the studio.

Dr. Dre‘s son Curtis Young has reportedly landed a role in the new film Charge It To The Game. He’ll apparently also be composing original music for the film.

According to TMZ, who spoke to Young, Charge It To The Game is a coming-of-age story about four best friends with Young playing “Kong,” one of the friend’s older brothers. And, making it a veritable who’s-who of famous rappers’ offspring, Snoop Dogg‘s son Julian Broadus is also in the movie, playing Kong’s younger brother, and Swiss Beatz‘s son is reportedly making his acting debut as one of the four friends (plus scoring the film with Young).

“This is my first movie and I wanted to get into acting… I always loved the art,” Young told TMZ. “It’s just an art form I’ve always loved. I’m playing a role, Kong, which is a gentleman named Hardtime — it’s Julian Broadus, which is Snoop’s son — I’m playing his older brother. So, I’ve been reading the script, just preparing, getting motivated, behind it and getting engaged with it.”

Talking about scoring the film, Young said, “I was asked and I’m honored to score the film and I believe they just yesterday announced that note. Swizz Beatz’s son is gonna be scoring it with me, so I’m just honored to have this opportunity.”

Young also offered an update on Dre’s health since his father suffered a brain aneurysm earlier this year. “My pops is healing,” he said. “He appreciates me for what I’m doing and doing on my own… It’s been a while since I had an opportunity like this to really step out of that shadow, but at the same time show respect and understand that people came before me.”

The Last of Us, one of the most acclaimed video game series of all-time, is being turned into an HBO series. There’s a big star (Pedro Pascal), a big-name showrunner (Craig Mazin, formerly of the Emmy-winning miniseries Chernobyl), and a BIG budget.

“The Last of Us, which commences photography this week, is indeed a monster,” International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees 212 union president Damian Petti told CTV News (the show is being filmed in Alberta, Canada). “It has five art directors and employs an army of hundreds of technicians. It has had six months of prep and shoots for 12 months. I cannot confirm the official budget numbers, but will say it is likely the largest project shooting in Canada. This project well exceeds the eight-figure per episode mark, so there is a multiplier effect on our economy in terms of its impact. There are hundreds of related businesses benefitting from the plethora of work.”

Game of Thrones cost $15 million/per episode in its final season, meaning The Last of Us is likely in the $10-$20 million range. Pascal has expensive taste.

The Last of Us doesn’t have a sprawling (read: expensive) ensemble cast — Pascal’s Joel and Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, will be the only characters on screen for much of season one — but turning Canada into a wasteland of fungus dens, molotov cocktails, and monsters isn’t cheap. There are no dragons, but there are clickers. Lots of them.

(Via CTV News)

After years of looking like the final chapter of the trilogy would never get made, Lionsgate has acquired the worldwide rights to Kevin Smith’s Clerks III. The long-gestating third installment is currently in pre-production in New Jersey and is slated to start filming next month. According to Smith, the film will continue the events of Clerks II, which was released over 15 years ago in 2006. All of the original cast members will return, including Rosario Dawson, who recently lit the geek world on fire with her live-action portrayal of Star Wars’ favorite Ahsoka Tano.

However, this time, the crew will not be slinging burgers at Moobies, and instead, Dante and Randal will be back in the convenience store where it all started. Via Deadline:

“There’s a saying from the Tao that goes something like ‘To be great is to go on. To go on is to go far. To go far is to return.’ Thanks to Lionsgate, we get to return to where it all started with almost the whole cast that started it all! And for the first time since the first time we ever made a movie in 1993, we’re shooting the entire flick on location in New Jersey, as an ode to both the enduring allure of cinema and the resourcefulness and lunacy of its storytellers. Years ago, Dante and Randal made me a filmmaker – so now it’s time I return the favor.”

The news arrives as Smith is also blowing minds in the nerd realm thanks to his work creating the He-Man revival, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, that’s set to arrive on Netflix later this month.

(Via Deadline)

Piers Morgan must not be deterred after people came for him when he and Prince William condemned racist attacks against soccer stars in the wake of their treatment of Meghan Markle. And Piers also hasn’t learned his lesson after growing publicly outraged over Meghan’s children’s book before people couldn’t stop laughing at him over his continued obsession. Nope, the anger bear still rages, and this week, Piers is very upset over news that Prince Harry will publish a memoir.

Random House tweeted news of the late 2022 project and this quote from Harry: “I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become.”

As one might easily predict, Piers did not take the news too well. “You’ve got to be f*cking joking?????” soon surfaced in tweet form. “Ready to tell his story?” he asked with more laughter emoji. “Prince Privacy hasn’t stopped yapping, whining & trashing his family all bloody year.”

Piers will stop at nothing to defend his Queen. He even left Good Morning Britain after his on-air temper tantrum over Markle and what he views as an attack (and he continues to call Meghan a liar) on the monarchy. He’s clearly still salty over Meghan “ghosting” him after a pub date several years ago, which has apparently led him to dismiss her claims of racist statements from Royal family members over Harry and Meghan’s son. Well, people still find Piers’ tantrums over Meghan and Harry to be quite amusing.

That’s a solid point there at the end, yes. Piers “yaps” about everything, all while obsessing over Meghan’s life, and he appears to be aghast the the couple fled the United Kingdom for Montecito, where they’re presumably living their best life. Yes, they’re taking gigs, but they’ve got a hefty security bill to pay, and that money ain’t coming from the British Royal Family.

With every generation of games, there are usually a handful of genres that we see above all else. It’s usually game studios that attempt to follow up on a popular trend, add their spin on it, and sometimes redefine the way it’s viewed. These days those two genres are battle royales and class-based shooters.

So when Ubisoft began to tease a new entry into their popular Tom Clancy franchise, with a little teaser from IGN, the direction they were going in was clear. They were throwing their hat in the ring of the class-based shooter. On Monday, they revealed Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, a game that is going to pull from previous Tom Clancy games to form factions that will compete against each other while accomplishing objectives. Typical class shooter stuff. That said, the trailer made sure to emphasize that this is a game that is going to focus on the shooting part of their shooter so we can expect a heavy emphasis on gameplay.

The developers in the video were right to put an emphasis on the shooting aspect of their game because class based shooters typically go one of two ways. They either take the Overwatch route and give everyone unique quirky powers, or they take the Apex Legends route and make the game about who is better at using their guns. This game appears to be more like the latter, but there could be some unique quirks to it that make it more than just an Apex clone. For starters, the factions from previous Tom Clancy games are all very unique and that feels like an opportunity to get really weird with the classes. If Ubisoft leans into that weirdness then they may have something on their hands here.

It will be interesting to see what direction they choose to take this game post-launch. A lot of these kinds of games have aspirations of being the next great esport, and put a heavy emphasis on their competitive modes, and with how much the trailer emphasized the shooting it sure feels like this will also be heading in that direction. If that is the direction they are taking, however, then they’ll need to make sure that the unique aspects of their game really stand out.