The 2019-20 NBA season was cut short for everyone, but especially for Victor Oladipo. The Pacers star missed the first half of the campaign rehabbing from his ruptured quad injury suffered last year, and was steadily working his way back into All-Star form as Indiana made its push for playoff seeding.

The hope was that by the time the playoffs rolled around, Oladipo would be back to his old self, making the Pacers a very difficult out in the Eastern Conference. The Pacers had won four of his last five games, and his final outing — a three-point loss to Boston — was by far his best, going for 27 points, seven rebounds, and four assists.

With the league going on hiatus right as Oladipo was finding his form, he’s had to try and keep that momentum going at home, a place he’s been all too familiar with the past year-plus during the grueling rehab that kept him out of the lineup for a calendar year. Oladipo spoke with Dime on Tuesday on behalf of Motorola Razr about how he’s handling the hiatus, from training to new hobbies he’s found to master and keep his competitive juices flowing, as well as fashion, the evolution of his style, and the Flip Your Look challenge he’s partnered with Motorola on to get fans to show off their best “tunnel walk” looks and raise money to get healthcare workers much needed PPE.

First, how are you doing and what are you doing to fill the time at home?

I’m good. I’m doing well, just trying to stay out the way. I turned my garage into a weight room, so I’ve been working out, trying to keep my quad strong and get my body stronger and take my body to another level. Other than that, I’m just trying to stay out of the way. Stay safe, stay healthy, and just continue to try and build my strength and my stamina as much as possible.

You seemed to be finding that rhythm again on the floor in your last five games, especially your last one, before the hiatus. How do you try to keep that positive momentum going with what you’re able to do at home?

I mean, at the end of the day, it was a great game but it was just one game. It really doesn’t define me, it doesn’t define the player I am or who I want to be. It was a great game and we lost, so at the end of the day, it’s in the past and I’m just focused on my mind. Working on my mind and my body, keeping my game as sharp as possible.

You spent a year rehabbing and recovering and that caused you to spend a lot of time at home, were there things you started doing then to pass the time that you found you really liked and have helped you over the last couple months?

I’ve actually gotten really good at ping pong. I just started playing this past summer, and I’m starting to get better and better at it. Play it pretty much every day and every night now, so, ping pong is one thing I’ve acquired or learned how to play in my rehab time and through this quarantine time.

It keeps the hand eye coordination sharp, so there’s some benefit there.

Exactly.

You’re known for dressing well and being a one of the league’s more fashionable guys. How would you describe how your style has changed since you got in the league?

Oh man, my style has changed drastically since I first got in the league. I think over the time period of seven years I’ve figured out what I like and don’t like, and what I’m comfortable in, you know, what I feel good in. I’ve tried different looks and I’ve tried different styles, but I’ve found what fits best for me. So, simple, yet, has a twist to it. Just like my personality. My thinking has changed a lot and it’s grown over the years and it’s going to keep getting better I feel like.

How important is that? I’ve talked to other guys and they say similar things about how you can’t force it. Fashion has to be about what you are and what you’re like. How did you find those things along the way?

You gotta try stuff. I mean, you gotta try stuff on, you gotta try different looks, you gotta be uncomfortable in order to find what fits you and what makes you feel comfortable. At the end of the day, fashion is unique, and I think that’s what people don’t understand is that when you wear what you wear and as long as you feel comfortable in it, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It’s just your style, and you can get that and learn that from a lot of people. Just make it your own, and once you make it your own then it’s no one else’s and that makes it special.

Has the extra time at home given you a chance to try new fits and combinations of things in your closet?

Yeah, definitely. I’m in my other house in Orlando right now, so I’ve got a whole different wardrobe. So I’ve been looking at it and trying to put things together and stuff like that. It’s been fun doing that too.

Can you tell us what you’re doing with Motorola Razr and the Flip Your Look challenge and how fans can get involved?

Basically it’s the Flip Your Look challenge with Motorola and their new Razr phone, and anyone can basically put together their best look or their “tunnel walk” look. So like us, for example, walking into the arena that’s kind of like our runway and our chance to show our style and our personality in what we wear. So, we’re getting fans to do that at home, and every time they do it and post #flipyourlook, $50 goes to the IEDC Foundation to help fight the coronavirus and to pay for masks [and PPE], too. So it’s for a good cause. At the end of the day, it’s something that’s fun and energetic and brings positivity, but it’s helping the world and that’s what it’s all about. In order to affect change, we’ve got to do something to change.

How important was it to you to find something that you could do to, as you say, try and impact that change? We’ve seen a lot of guys around the league and teams doing different things and using their platforms. How important is that at a time like this for you?

It’s very important, especially right now as the world is kind of at a standstill. At the end of the day, one person or a few people aren’t going to change things in our world today. You need everybody. It doesn’t mean you have to affect change the way I do or your next door neighbor or someone you might look up to. You just have to do it in your own way, and if everyone can do that, we can create a chain effect and eventually our world will be better and we can definitely bounce back from this. But we’re going to need everybody to do so. That’s just our duty and obligation to affect change, especially in a time of crisis like this. We’ve got to do whatever we can to help, and that’s what I’m trying to do and I know that my peers and colleagues are trying to do the same.

A lot has been written about the state of Florida deciding to allow WWE to continue taping their TV shows from an empty gym in Orlando. The company was labeled an “essential business” by the state, a decision later defended by the governor’s office, which issued a statement saying WWE was “critical to Florida’s economy.” A few days later, news came out that a conservative SuperPAC headed up by former Trump cabinet member (and wife of WWE CEO Vince McMahon) Linda McMahon pledged to spend a whopping $18.5 million in Tampa and Orlando, two cities WWE has a large presence in (and two local economies which are certainly reeling due to the loss of WrestleMania week and NXT’s weekly broadcasts). Just last week, the city of Orlando read an anonymous complaint from a WWE employee saying they were being “forced to work” during a pandemic. Nothing to see here, folks!

Thankfully, this hasn’t gone unnoticed by late-night TV hosts. Last week, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah cracked a few jokes about WWE (even having Seth Rollins hit Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with a steel chair, sorta). Then last night during the latest episode of Conan At Home, long-running late-night TV host Conan O’Brien poked fun at the WWE being labeled an “essential service,” with his co-host Andy Richter referring to professional wrestlers as “selfless gladiators who elbow smash, cross-chop and clothesline each other day after day for our amusement,” before taking some potshots at members of the WWE roster:

Who knew Coco was a smark?

Fenne Lily is on the rise. The 23-year-old singer-songwriter found herself an audience with her 2018 self-released debut album, On Hold, enough so that she is now signed to Dead Oceans. She has also opened for established indie favorites like Lucy Dacus and Andy Shauf, and if the global situation allows, she is set to open for Waxahatchee this fall. Lily made her Dead Oceans debut last month with “Hypochondriac,” and now she is back with her second single for the label, “To Be A Woman Pt. 2.”

The song was a strong choice for a follow-up single, as it shows off her versatility. While “Hypochondriac” was a peaceful tune, “To Be A Woman Pt. 2” is less restrained in its approach, carried by its calm rumbling verses that lead to storms of guitar. That’s reflective of the track’s theme, as Lily says of the song:

“Usually when writing about rage, most of the initial anger I feel towards the person or situation becomes diluted through the recording process, but this song was different. ‘To Be a Woman Pt. 2’ is a call to arms. It’s raw and furious, coming from a place of frustration and pain born from a loss of control and a breach of trust. The result of a manipulative relationship, it’s both a retaliation against subordination and a reclamation of power.”

Listen to “To Be A Woman Pt. 2” above.

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas are happily married and expecting their first child, but they wouldn’t have made it this far, or even started dating, if the Jo-Bro hadn’t agreed to one of Turner’s (room of) requirements. On The Late Late Show, the “Sucker” hitmaker discussed his relationship with the Game of Thrones actress with host James Corden, and how she agreed to start dating him only if he watched the Harry Potter movies.

“Sophie, she said, ‘Look, if we’re going to get married’ — and it was actually, ‘If you’re going to date me, you have to watch the Harry Potters.’ Because every Christmas, for those of you that are watching that don’t know, every Christmas in the U.K. they just stream and play Harry Potter,” Jonas said. “So I watched them all, I fell in love with it.”

This was a risky proposition from Turner. What if Joe Jonas hated the Harry Potter movies because he’s more of a Percy Jackson guy? What if his favorite Harry Potter is Goblet of Fire and her favorite Harry Potter is Chamber of Secrets, which is crazy because that’s no one’s favorite Harry Potter? And what if he demanded she watch his favorite movie as payback, and his favorite movie is Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo? Luckily for the pop culture power-couple, he did not dip into Rob Schneider’s oeuvre:

After Jonas accepted the Harry Potter binge, she had to watch one of his favorites: Lord of the Rings. “And I was like, ‘Well, look, my rule is that you have to watch Lord of the Rings.’ So we’ve been binge-watching Lord of the Rings during this time and building the Legos that go with the movies, which is quite fun.”

And they lived happily ever after, as long as neither one of them confuses Gandalf for Dumbledore, or vice versa. That’s grounds for divorce.

Karen Gillan ended up playing two Nebulas (in separate timelines) as the MCU’s Infinity Saga wound down, and she also played dual roles in Doctor Who (as Eleventh Doctor sidekick Amy Pond and a fleeting soothsayer), and now she’s doing it again. This time, though, she’ll play two actual clones with no timeline or costuming shenanigans on display. Gillan will also be joined by Aaron Paul in the upcoming satirial sci-fi/thriller/action movie, Dual, from director Riley Stearns (The Art of Self Defense).

Hollywood Reporter reveals that Gillan will appear alongside the Breaking Bad and Westworld star to play an unwitting clone who unwittingly ends up in the worst fight-to-the-death ever: against herself. It sounds ridiculously morbid (with obvious wordplay), and it may be something that will go straight-to-VOD, which is going to happen more frequently than ever (and successfully, if you ask anyone recently endured the Trolls World Tour movie) in the coming years. From the synopsis:

The movie from director Riley Stearns will follow a terminally ill woman (Gillan) who opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a miraculous recovery, her attempts to have her clone (also played by Gillan) decommissioned fail and lead to a court-mandated duel to the death.

The movie will also feature Jesse Eisenberg, who starred in Stearns’ The Art of Self Defense, an incredibly dark comedy that put an ominous twist on The Karate Kid template. Eisenberg’s role sounds like a smaller one, although Paul’s one of the headliners here, and there’s no indication of who he’s playing. Please, let it be clones, with one of them acting like a thinly veiled version of Jesse Pinkman. Nope, I’m still not tired of that character, even after El Camino, and Dual sounds like it plays with reality just enough to make something unexpected happen. Granted, this wish probably won’t happen, but I’m holding onto that hope.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Mac Miller may be gone, but his legacy lives on and now, fans can find out where it all began. While Mac’s K.I.D.S. mixtape wasn’t his first, it was arguably the most important in exposing the talented, then-teenaged Pittsburgh rapper to a wide audience and starting him on the road to superstardom. Released April 29, 2010, Mac’s fourth mixtape, released under indie label Rostrum Records, broke him to the masses with the tracks “Nikes On My Feet” and “Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza,” as well as a diverse array of old-school hip-hop beats that allowed him to showcase his love for the genre and his deft flow.

Now, K.I.D.S. is officially available for streaming on all DSPs after previously only being available on mixtape sites like DatPiff, where it originally debuted. When it originally released, Mac Miller was only 18 years old and often unfairly categorized as part of the then-prominent “frat rap” movement. K.I.D.S allowed him to break out of that box, as well as endear him to an older generation reluctant to accept so-called “blog rappers” as members of the hip-hop canon with its clever use of beats like Nas’ “The World Is Yours” and Lord Finesse’s “Hip 2 Da Game” and its references to the 1995 cult film Kids.

It was also the subject of controversy as Lord Finesse sued over the above-mentioned sample for $10 million, later settling out-of-court for an undisclosed sum. K.I.D.S. was also the launching pad for Mac’s first tour, on which he sold out every location

.

Listen to Mac Miller’s K.I.D.S. mixtape above.

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

Killing Eve’s third episode gave us a double helping of murder with a side of past childhood trauma. Villanelle stayed busy, offing not one but two targets (and an unfortunate witness), both of which changed the game in terms of character development and the show’s narrative future. But only one involved a baby in a trash can, and that’s the hit we’re focusing on this week.

The Trash-Can Baby After A Kill

Technically there were three murders this week on Killing Eve, and though one directly links back to the mystery of The Twelve, it’s the episode’s opening double-hit that feels like it’s foreshadowing a seismic shift in our main psychopath. Babies make everyone sentimental, even a globe-trotting assassin hardened by years of bloodshed and her own turbulent upbringing, but no one could’ve guessed just how up in her feelings Villanelle would get from hanging with a pair of cherubic cheeks.

But before their mommy-daughter date, Villanelle’s got to get rid of the kid’s real mother, a musician with obsessive-compulsive disorder over the cleanliness of her instruments. Villanelle’s offed many people who you couldn’t help but sympathize with. This woman ain’t one of them.

She quickly lodges a tuning fork in the back of her skull before a baby monitor lights up, and Villanelle goes to investigate. She finds a nanny trying to soothe a wailing butterball, one who begs her to spare the child. Killing Eve has always been a darkly funny show but we could have never guessed they’d manage to get us cackling over an innocent maid pleading for her life.

She flits between threatening to kill the house worker and the newborn, wondering why the woman would sacrifice herself for a child that wasn’t hers, before making the nanny’s brain her human bullseye and kidnapping the kid.

It’s almost impossible to differentiate between sincerity and sociopathy when it comes to Villanelle and her choice to lunch with the baby doesn’t do much to define that line. She tells Dasha she’s practicing her character work and the two have a bitingly humorous squabble over Villanelle’s more manic tendencies and her recent managerial failings, but there’s something deeper at play for the notoriously closed-off killer. Psychopaths don’t get sticky-fingers for miniature poop machines. As with anything she does, there’s a method to Villanelle’s madness. While we’re thinking that over, here’s Dasha dumping the baby in the trash.

Villanelle may not be ready to return to London and see Eve but she’s in no position to turn down a job, so she arms herself with the scent of a Roman gladiator returning from battle to meet his old foe, and carries out another hit — this time coming dangerously close to ending Carolyn’s life in the process. She bunks with Konstantin after the job, where the baby continues to haunt her. She’s seen the child reunited with its father on TV. She’s reminded of her own orphaned status, of her mother’s abandonment, of what led her to this life to begin with. She’s also reminded of the fact that she has no idea what she looked like as a newborn.

An unnaturally bulbous head or not, Villanelle seems determined to reacquaint herself with her roots by episode’s end. Again, she claims she needs to know her origins because “knowledge is power,” and she wants to keep enough of it to ensure The Twelve can’t control her life, but it’s odd that this desire to find her family comes after another job gone sideways. Is Villanelle getting sloppy, as Dasha claims, or is she finally breaking free of whatever hold her employers have on her and discovering what she really wants from this life of crime?

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Westworld’s penultimate episode answered a few nagging questions but if you thought all of the loose ends would be tied up before the show’s action-packed season three finale — well, you’re too damn trusting to be watching this series in the first place.

We know more about Caleb. We know more about Serac’s genius brother and his tragic end. We know what William believes he needs to do in order to save the world. And we know that the sickest burn for a host is to call him a “can opener.” But there’s still plenty we don’t know — like Dolores’ endgame, the nature of the A.I.s, why Caleb is so important, what timeline we’re operating in … Okay, real talk: We know absolutely nothing. But here’s us brainstorming with the help of Reddit’s brightest theorists.

1. Brain-Powered

We’ve spent most of this season wondering about the show’s new villain. Is Serac a living human being, is he a projection of Rehoboam, is he dead and we’re just seeing him in flashbacks? He’s only interacted with Maeve up until this point, so it seemed likely that theories of simulations and alternate timelines might explain his mysterious absence during pivotal moments. But after this week’s episode, we’re starting to wonder if there was ever a line to be drawn between creator and creation in the first place.
After meeting Solomon and learning more about Serac’s brilliant but troubled brother Jean Mi, fans are viewing these massive A.I. machines in a new way. Solomon seems to have inherited schizophrenic tendencies and an inability to discern which reality is most likely to happen, much like his “father,” while Rehoboam is pragmatic and focused on one solution he believes can prevent the end of humanity. If Solomon is Jean Mi – which is implied since Serac had both shut away in the Sonora facility – then Rehoboam might be Serac. In other words, Serac has uploaded his consciousness into the program and is controlling it, which explains why out of the millions of alternate paths, Rehoboam seems fixed on this current one. It’s Serac’s influence, his very human inability to see more than one solution, that’s contributing to Rehoboam’s rule of law. And isn’t it odd that both machines are shaped like the pearls that power the consciousness of hosts?

Read the full thread here.

2. Cryo Wake Up Call

Fans were finally treated to a bloody showdown between Dolores and Maeve who are fighting for … reasons? Honestly, the adversarial nature of their relationship is one of the more confusing narratives this season but we’re gonna roll with it for now. Dolores looked to be down for the count before she activated an EMP that shut down every powered being in the facility, hosts included. With the lights turned off, many Redditors wondered what that meant for the “outliers” currently trapped in Sleeping Beauty’s cryogenic nightmare. Did they die? Unlikely since they’re technically still human, just more frozen. In fact, turning the switch off might mean the people in those pods – and there were quite a lot of pods – will soon wake up and we can’t imagine they’ll be happy to discover an omnipowerful A.I. condemned them to eternal rest because of their “f*ck the establishment” natures. Serac’s probably going to be sorry he kept these people alive, especially if one turns out to be his psychotic brother.

Read the full thread here.

3. The Passed Pawn

People who not only understand but actually enjoy playing chess are hella smart. Case in point: This Redditor who explained the episode’s titular meaning. Apparently, a “passed pawn” is a piece on the chessboard with no enemy directly in front of it that can be upgraded to a more valuable piece. There are narrative illusions and then there are the metaphors that Westworld comes up with. Subtle, they are not. Caleb seems to be the stand-in for this pawn theory, a man who’s finally coming to terms with the truth about his past, who’s been positioned to lead a revolution while Dolores faces down her mortal enemy. Other characters seem to have more present and immediate threats as well: William wants to eradicate the hosts, Charlores has it out for her maker, Maeve needs to kill Dolores to be reunited with her daughter, etc. The only character without a real nemesis is Caleb, which might make him the most dangerous player on the board.

Read the full thread here.

4. Prime Dolores

As invincible as Dolores often appears, this episode really drove home the fact that she can be beaten. Maeve nearly killed her before she was able to cut the power and their tense battle had most fans holding their breath. If Maeve had crushed Dolores’ pearl, would that be the end of the girl in the blue dress? Probably not. In fact, there’s still one pearl unaccounted for and fans think it might be Prime Dolores, the original consciousness of the host. Is she squatting in a flat in Berlin, raging out to some techno beats and cooking schnitzels? Eh. But there’s some weight to this idea that there may be one more trick up the host’s sleeve.

Read the full thread here.

5. FutureWorld

We know, we know, we’ve theorized about FutureWorld before, but this latest episode laid even more groundwork for the idea that the timelines on this show are just screwing with us. After all, we still need to account for that post-credits season two scene set in the future that shows the A.I. creating fidelity tests that involve William. Add to that Solomon’s throwaway line that caused Dolores to give him a knowing smirk and, well, who’s to say Caleb isn’t a human replicant reliving his memories. What that means for Dolores’ master plan, we still don’t have a clue.

Read the full thread here.

6. Fore(Arm) Shadowing

There are so many moving parts on Westworld, it’s hard to keep up with all of the Easter eggs the creators are dropping in random places. Like the opening credits scene. Should we have guessed Dolores would lose her arm since the host in the show’s intro seems to be missing one as well? We guess. But really, that’s putting a lot of pressure on our observational skills.

Read the full thread here.

Big Thief have apparently been looking through their vaults lately, because the group has been sharing some previously unreleased material that didn’t make their recent albums. Earlier this month, they released Demos Vol. 1 — Topanga Canyon, CA — Feb 2018, a collection of demos shared to benefit their touring crew, who, like many others in the music scene, have been financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the group is back with another song that didn’t find its way onto a record, as Big Thief has shared “Love In Mine.”

The finger-picked acoustic guitar track is a gentle and lovely tune, especially with Adrianne Lenker’s beautifully retrained vocal performance. Lenker sings the poetic lyrics, “Whatever comes / Whatever leaves / What we leave behind / Like cicada shells / Will be hollowed / And eaten by the hills.”

The group shared the song and wrote, “Listen to ‘Love In Mine,’ an outtake that is very dear to us from the Two Hands session. We all felt this song was one of the strongest songs/captures in the Two Hands batch but we could never quite get it to fit in a sequence. Happy to be sharing it now.”

Listen to “Love In Mine” above, and revisit our review of Two Hands here.