Category: News

On Thursday night, the NBA aired the 2021 All-Star Draft as LeBron James and Kevin Durant made their selections for their respective squads, and after 21 picks had been made, the final two players left on the board were both from the Utah Jazz.

Charles Barkley called the two captains out for “Utah Jazz slander” and LeBron tried to insist that wasn’t the case and, in doing so, proceeded to dump all over the franchise’s history, noting that no matter how good they’ve been, no one has ever really wanted to pick the Jazz’s stars. It drew plenty of laughs, but in Utah, it was the latest example of disrespect towards a franchise that believes it hasn’t gotten its just due, particularly this season as they enter the All-Star break with the league’s best record.

On Sunday, Donovan Mitchell had his All-Star availability and was asked about James’ comments, noting that he doesn’t care about it at this point and that he’s heard people “talking sh*t” about him since he came into the NBA.

It’s the right response from Mitchell, who has certainly had plenty of experience this season dealing with some Hall of Fame criticism after the entire episode with Shaq earlier in the year. Between letting their frustration with the officials fly after the first half finale in Philadelphia and the All-Star Draft process, the Jazz won’t be short on motivation going into the second half of the season. As for Sunday night’s All-Star Game, Mitchell will be playing against his two Utah teammates as part of Team Durant, and can try to exact a little on-court revenge on LeBron if able.

Kanye West’s 2020 presidential campaign didn’t result in the win that he had hoped for. The rapper only tallied a few hundred votes from a handful of states around the country, and while the election is a thing of the past now, it looks like he’s in a bit of trouble as a result of it.

According to The Daily Beast the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has named several violations from the rapper’s campaign, all of which could lead to legal action pending an investigation. The report states that Kanye accepted multiple donations from minors as well as some from possible foreign officials. Contributions were also listed under fake names and addresses that traced back to drop-shipping facilities on the east and west coasts.

These unlawful fundraising practices accumulated nearly $100,000 in small donations this year. In an interview with the publication, 16-year-old West donor Ian Bloom revealed that he’s yet to receive $3,280 worth of Kanye 2020 gear that he ordered from the rapper’s campaign store in late January.

“I don’t know what’s happening there,” he said. “I ordered like 20 hoodies off his campaign website, along with a lot of other people that I know. They said it would be three weeks, and after that I emailed the support team, and the email just wasn’t a thing.” He shared a screenshot of the automated email response that revealed his address had been blocked. The Daily Beast adds that people under the age of 18 accounted for more than 1,200 of the reported 3,161 donations to Kanye’s campaign, making for a total of $349,160 with $26,540 of that arriving in 2021. It should be noted that it is illegal to seek and accept donations from anyone younger than 18 years old.

Bloom added that he’s in a Discord chat with other hopeful resellers of Kanye’s 2020 gear, many of whom are underage. “I can say with confidence that at least half of us in the group have to be still in high school,” he said.

On Sunday, the NBA announced that Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons would not play in the All-Star Game due to contact tracing after the two Sixers stars visited a barber in Philadelphia prior to this weekend who tested positive for COVID-19.

It was the exact situation the NBA had hoped to avoid as it attempted to thread the needle of hosting a one-day All-Star in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, as, if nothing else, the optics of the two having to be removed for contact tracing caused the conversation around the game to once again shift to whether it should be happening. The Embiid and Simmons situation likely didn’t change the minds of many, but for those who already had warranted concerns about bringing players from different markets into one place for a made-for-TV exhibition, it certainly highlighted why the concern existed in the first place.

Among those who have expressed their belief that the game shouldn’t happen is Paul George, who was honest when asked about the situation involving the Sixers’ two stars and noted that in a time when health and safety should be at the forefront of every decision, hosting an All-Star Game should not be happening.

George was far from alone in being against having an All-Star Game, as other top stars like LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo likewise questioned why it was happening weeks ago. They will speak later and it won’t be a surprise to see them likewise reiterate their stances on the game being unnecessary. Others, like Damian Lillard, were asked about the situation and noted it’s unfortunate, while also pointing out the vigilance required to stay out of protocols this year.

The game will go on, with Zion Williamson shuffling into the starting lineup for Team Durant in place of Embiid, and the league will keep its fingers crossed that the only protocol issues that arise from the All-Star festivities are the absence of Philly’s two stars for contact tracing.

Despite all the awards and commercial success she’s attained in her career, Lizzo still faces harmful comments from fans throughout the music world. Unfortunately, another instance of this occurred this past weekend during an Instagram Live session. While chatting with her followers, the singer was asked how she deals “with being obese every day.” Upon reading the message, Lizzo cracked a smile and delivered a response that saw her get the last laugh.

“I wake up into my obese bed — I have to get a king bed because I’m so obese — and I put on my I put on my obese Louis Vuitton house slippers,” she said. “I walk into my massive, obese bathroom and I just stare into my wall-to-wall, obese mirror and lather myself in the most obese, expensive oils and creams, and — oh, god — I walk into my obese, gorgeous, mid-century modern kitchen, and by the time I’ve made it into my kitchen, I’ve already made another obese million dollars.”

She continued by shedding some fake tears and adding, “My bank account is so fat. My bank account is so obese, and, like, I tried to put it on a diet but she’s just so stubborn, like, she won’t listen.”

You can watch the video from the Instagram Live above.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Bleacher Report joined forces with Modelo to put on a two-on-two game that would benefit Black colleges and universities on Saturday. Dubbed the Open Run, the matchup for the night was set to be Jack Harlow and Quavo vs. 2 Chainz and Lil Baby. After a week of promotion, the pairs finally battled it out with the winner being the first team to 21 points, Harlow and Quavo took home the win with a score of 21-7. The Migos rapper was undoubtedly the star of the show as he put up 17 points, 14 rebounds, and 4 blocks. It was just two years ago that he took home the MVP trophy at the 2018 Celebrity All-Star Game, and it’s clear a few years later he still has what it takes to dominate.

In an interview with Uproxx last week, Harlow shared his excitement about playing alongside Quavo.

“I’m very happy with who I got,” he said. “Out of the three other players, that would be my number one choice because he brings something to the game, based on everything I’ve seen on YouTube, that I don’t bring to the game.”

As a result of winning the came, Harlow and Quavo each received a cash prize of $500,000 while Bleacher Report pledged to donate $500,000 to HBCUs that the rappers chose. Harlow picked Simmons College of Kentucky and Kentucky State while Quavo went with Clark Atlanta University and Spellman College.

From Quavo’s stellar game to a pretty bad free throw attempt from Lil Baby, viewers seemed to be fairly entertained by the matchup and they took to Twitter to share their thoughts.

You can read the reactions below.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The NBA has already extended one late invite to a player to the NBA All-Star Game in Atlanta due to an injury, but some very late changes may also be in store due to contact tracing. According to reports on Sunday morning, Philadelphia 76ers stars Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid may miss the mid-season showcase due to contact tracing efforts after a trip to a barber shop.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported on the situation, which stemmed from a trip for one of the players to get a haircut. The barber who did the trim, however, later had an inconclusive COVID-19 test result, which puts the two stars at potential risk to not only have contracted the virus, but also expose others to it while on the court and at other abridged All-Star festivities.

The reporting, both from Charania and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, makes it clear that the Sixers players didn’t appear to have broken any of the various protocols the NBA put in place for contact tracing and restrictions for travel for the All-Star Game itself.

As Wojnarowski reported, both are still expected to do media sessions later in the day, and a ruling on whether they can play will come soon. But it wasn’t looking good as of Sunday morning.

Later Sunday, reports indicated the barber in question did, indeed, test positive to further put their status in doubt.

It’s another reminder of just how prevalent coronavirus still remains in America, even as vaccines continue to help the population and case counts in some places diminish. Despite all the protocols and plans and sequestering a league can do, things can still go wrong and put people at risk for exposure.

UPDATE: Simmons and Embiid were both officially ruled out of the All-Star Game by the NBA on Sunday morning, and the NBA will not be replacing them given it is the day of the game, per Woj.

The only options would have likely been Trae Young and John Collins if both still happened to be in Atlanta, but given that Embiid and Simmons were each on different rosters, it’s no surprise they will move forward with 11 players each.

The weekend box office went on hiatus a few weeks after Tenet faltered at the box office, but with theaters re-opening (with capacity restrictions) in New York, and likely to be reopening in Los Angeles soon, the box-office is slowly returning to life. In fact, last weekend, Tom and Jerry had the biggest opening weekend of 2021 — and one of the biggest of the pandemic — with $14.1 million, despite also being offered for free to HBO Max subscribers and getting terrible reviews.

Meanwhile, Disney has re-released a number of films since the beginning of the pandemic (Guardians of the Galaxy, Toy Story, etc.), and they have moved a few films to Disney+ (Soul, Artemis Fowl), and they have even offered one film at premium pricing (Mulan). However, this weekend, Disney released its first new film into theaters since Onward, although Raya and the Last Dragon was also offered on Disney+ for $30.

So how’d it go? It’s a mixed bag. It earned a decent $8.3 million in theaters, although I suspect that the film did considerably better on Disney+, since it was being promoted to the streamers’ roughly 100 million subscribers (HBO Max, meanwhile, has only 37 million subs). That’s slightly less than expectations, which was a $9 million opening weekend. There were a number of factors in play, however, that would have made it more difficult to beat Tom and Jerry — aside from the fact that the premium cost was heavily promoted — namely the fact that Disney made no deals with Cinemark, the #3 chain in America and that it’s not based on a familiar property.

The mediocre box-office numbers are less a worry for Disney, however, than they are for movie theaters. That’s because Disney has to share the $8.3 million it earned in theaters with the exhibitors. It does not, however, have to share the $30 it earned for each Disney+ purchase. On a family film like Raya, the economics work out well for consumers and for the studio, but not necessarily for theaters. To wit: I have a family of five. We paid $30 for Raya (and enjoyed it very much). It would’ve cost at least $45 for the same six of us to see it in theaters (plus expensive concessions), and Disney would have had to split the $45 with theater chains, which is to say: in my situation, Disney earned more and consumers paid less. Theaters, however, got the squeeze.

Will that matter in the long term? That remains unclear. A lot of films that used to open in theaters will obviously move to streaming networks post-pandemic, and it remains to be seen whether moviegoers will flock to theaters in the same numbers after having gotten used to watching movies in their living rooms. It looks like Black Widow, which is still tentatively scheduled for a May 7 release date, will be the big test. Will Disney keep that release date and take their chances even though the pandemic will still be ongoing? Will they move it until late summer, after everyone is expected to have been vaccinated? Or will they try and release it in theaters and at home and see what happens?

Those are the big questions heading into the next few weeks, and the decision will be based on numbers with which we aren’t privy. It is worth noting, however, that if just 10 percent of Disney+ subscribers purchase Raya and the Last Dragon, that is $300 million pure Disney profit that it doesn’t have to share with theaters. Domestically, that’s $90 million more than the $210 million that Coco earned, which Disney then had to split with theaters.

Elsewhere, in its second weekend, Tom and Jerry looks to be landing with about $6.7 million, which is not that far from Raya‘s opening weekend gross. It’s earned $23 million in theaters after 10 days, which is a mystery to me, since it’s cheaper to subscribe to HBO Max for a month ($15) than it is to pay for Raya with a Disney+ subscription, and yet families continue to take their kids to theaters to see Tom and Jerry with its 25 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.

Lionsgate spent $100 million on Chaos Walking, featuring the star of the Star Wars franchise (Daisy Ridley) and the star of the Spider-Man franchise (Tom Holland), but they could still only muster $3.7 million in theaters. Chaos Walking, by the way, is not available yet anywhere except theaters. It’s also worth noting that, despite the star power behind it (and Doug Liman in the director’s chair), the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score is lower even than that of Tom and Jerry with a 23 percent.

The other new release this weekend was Eddie Huang’s Boogie, which earned $1.26 million. One of the biggest hits of the pandemic, Croods: New Age, rounds out the top five with $890,000 and $53.7 million, so far.

I get the sense that this was another of those test weekends, where the studios dipped their toes in to see what would happen. The box-office report here will likely go back into hiatus until later this month, if Bob Odenkirk’s Nobody breaks out on the 26th or when Godzilla vs. Kong opens on March 31st.

Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo

Jan Blachowicz (28-8) earned a decision victory over Israel Adesanya (20-1) to retain the light heavyweight title at UFC 259 from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Adesanya and Blachowicz spent much of the first round testing each other’s range, trading the occasional shot with a more tentative approach. Blachowicz the power striker was a bit on his back foot as Adesanya’s technical prowess was on full display. Adesanya kept Blachowicz at range, chipping front kicks and tossing feigns to keep the champ out of rhythm.

After a fairly uneventful first round, Blachowicz began to walk down Adesanya with a flurry of jabs. The chess match continued through much of the second, as Blachowicz found openings here and there, but Adesanya escaped without much damage. Adesanya connected on his fair share of shots, opening up stinging leg kicks on the champ.

Blachowicz again opened the third with a handful of overhand shots. The champ got Adesanya on the ground and took his back, but the challenger found his way back his feet and hurt Blachowicz with a nice combination against the cage. Blachowicz looked to slow the challenger with his clinch game, pushing Adesanya against the cage. Adesanya again escaped, showing off his head movement before going on the offensive to finish the round.

To open the championship round, Blachowicz began to chip away with heavy-handed jabs and nice, counter left hand hooks. Two minutes into the round, Blachowicz got his first takedown of the fight and controlled his positioning in what would be a crucial fourth round for the champ.

In the final round, Adesanya took a more measured approach, keeping his distance while attacking with leg kicks and step jabs. Breathing heavy and keeping his hands low, Blachowicz struggled with the pace of Adesanya early in the fifth. Midway through the round, though, Blachowicz shot and got Adesanya onto the ground with a massive double leg takedown. Blachowicz moved into the half guard and worked just enough to close the round on top.

Adesanya came into Saturday night’s main event looking to become just the fifth UFC fighter in the organization’s history to hold belts in two weight divisions at the same time. Adesanya has spent the last two years rolling through the middleweight division, handing losses to Kevin Gastelum, Robert Whittaker, Yoel Romero, and Paulo Costa losses. But in the main event, he got his first taste of light heavyweight power against the heavy-handed Blachowicz.

Blachowicz hasn’t lost since 2019, dropping a knockout loss to light heavyweight contender Thiago Santos. Since then, Blachowicz has blown through the division, knocking out Luke Rockhold, Corey Anderson and Dominick Reyes en route to the division crown.

After the fight, Adesanya said he’s going back to 185 pounds after coming up short at UFC 259. For Blachowicz, a showdown with Glover Teixeira seems in the cards for his next title defense.

Amanda Nunes (21-4) submitted Megan Anderson (11-5) two minutes into the first round to retain the featherweight belt at UFC 259 from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas Saturday night.

Nunes hurt Anderson bad minutes into the round with a slew of overhand rights that had the challenger rocked. The champ took her to the ground, took her back and tapped Anderson with an armbar.

Untested in seven years, Nunes came into Saturday’s main event as the most dominant women’s competitor and in the running for the best all-time, bar-none. The two-division champ, Nunes has knocked off Valentina Shevchenko, Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg, Miesha Tate, Holly Holm, and Germaine de Randamie, leaving Anderson the most recent woman to come across her path. Nunes hadn’t competed since June 2020, and remains virtually unchallenged with her dominant effort Saturday night.

Anderson came into her title shot with two consecutive wins, earning a submission victory over Zarah Fairn, then a knockout over Norma Dumont in February 2020. But Anderson’s prior success didn’t carry over into her title opportunity.

After the bout, Nunes celebrated with her daughter Raegan, who she’s recently called a new source of motivation.

In her post-fight interview, Nunes explained to Joe Rogan she’s “here” with no real competitor in sight. She added that a lion is dangerous, but once she has a baby, “no one can stop me.”

Aljamain Sterling (20-3) won the UFC bantamweight title via disqualification after Petr Yan (15-2) landed an illegal knee strike at UFC APEX in Las Vegas Saturday night.

Sterling came firing out of the gate, pushing back Yan and putting the pressure on with a mix of punches, kicks, and a flying knee for good measure. After trading takedowns, Yan sent Sterling sprawling back with a big right hand. The challenger got back to his feet and the champ sent him back down with a sweeping leg kick. Sterling earned a scissor takedown looking for a leg lock, but Yan made his way back to his feet. Yan took Sterling’s back, tossed him to the ground and looked fro a rear-choke before he bell sounded.

To open the second, Sterling settled into a more realistic championship-fight pace. Two slips early in the round gave Yan the advantage, but Sterling returned to his feet both times and kept pushing forward. Sterling spent much of the round looking for a takedown, but couldn’t capitalize before the end of the round.

In the third, it was Yan the aggressor, walking the challenger down with his own mix of shots. Yan sent Sterling to the ground with another back trip before allowing him back to his feet yet again. Yan threw the challenger to the ground another time late in the round, clearly fatigued from the pace of the first two rounds. Sterling opened up toward the end of the round, tossing an overhand left followed by snapping leg kicks.

The fourth was much of the same for Yan, picking apart Sterling with precision and power. Late in the round, Yan dropped Sterling while he was downed for an illegal knee strike.

After the fight, Sterling was emotional in an interview with Joe Rogan saying it wasn’t the way he wanted to win.

“I was in bad shape,” Sterling said. “The ref told me I was down. It’s f***ing bulls**t.”

Rogan went on to tell Sterling that Yan’s camp told him to strike, and that it was totally illegal. Sterling signed off with an apology to the fans with hopes of running it back in the future.

Yan’s first title defense came after handling devastating knockouts to UFC legends Uriah Faber and Jose Aldo in back-to-back tilts. Sterling earned his shot at UFC gold following five consecutive wins, including a submission in June 2020 over Corey Sandhagen.