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Talent was never the question for Anthony Edwards as he came into the NBA. Instead, the question was whether he’d be able to refine and apply that talent in such a way that he’d reach his sky-high potential.

Edwards arrived in the league with an NBA frame and the athleticism to match, but plenty wondered if he would put all the pieces together. An infamous pre-draft profile on ESPN raised questions about his commitment to basketball, while his love of Popeyes and McDonald’s led to plenty of scrutiny of his diet (including from his own teammates). All of this combined to paint a portrait of an immensely talented young player whose ceiling may never be reached.

In his first two years, Edwards’ lack of consistency was maddening, including to Edwards himself. Teams around the league grew to expect him to effectively no-show back-to-backs, with Edwards lamenting that “it’s normal for me to be bad on back-to-backs” after a dismal effort against the Spurs in the second week of the season in which he scored just nine points in a loss. He said he needed to find the juice to come out every night with the same effort and energy level, putting the onus on himself to make that leap to being a more reliable star for the rest of his team.

It appears that night proved to be a wake-up call for Edwards. Since then, the Wolves have played nine back-to-backs and Edwards has matched or exceeded the first night’s scoring total six times, averaging 27.2 points on 51.2 percent shooting in those nine games on the back-to-back.

That consistent productivity has allowed Edwards to become the much needed North Star for this Timberwolves team. He has quite literally been the most reliable star in the league, having played in all 60 games this season and leading the entire NBA in minutes played. On a team where Karl-Anthony Towns has missed the last 39 games and Rudy Gobert has missed 11 games, that availability has been critical in keeping the Wolves afloat. But it hasn’t just been that he’s on the court, because Edwards is giving his team star production most every night.

Edwards has fully embraced his role as the offensive engine in Minnesota in Towns’ absence. He is posting the best numbers of his young career across the board in every category, whether it be a raw productivity, efficiency, or usage stats. His 28.8 usage rate is a career-high and ranks 18th in the NBA among players who have logged 1,000 minutes. His 24.7 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game are all career bests, as is his 53.3 eFG% and 57.1 TS%.

The biggest difference this year has been the continued development of his jump shot and his ability to get it off in tight quarters, aided by a handle that continues to improve. With the Wolves roster constructed as it is — particularly with the addition of Gobert — maximizing the space on the floor to make strides as a scorer from all three levels was necessary in order to make the leap he has this season.

Edwards is already an elite driver. He gets to the rim at a rate (30.3 percent of his shot attempts inside three feet, per Basketball-Reference) that is equal to LeBron James and higher than any non-big on the top-20 in usage in the league, and he finishes at a robust 66.5 percent clip when he gets there. His burst, deceleration, balance, footwork, and touch around the basket are spectacular, and you can start to see how that foundation he’s built as a driver and finisher is already starting to expand beyond the restricted area.

He has gotten more adept at the little push-offs and tricks great scorers use to create enough separation to get his shot up, using an off-arm or his shoulder to get a defender on his heels to give him space to stepback for a jumper. His deceleration was already a weapon at the rim, but it’s now a bigger part of his midrange arsenal, taking advantage of how defenders have to retreat due to his ability to drive to the rim to stop and pop at the elbow. His footwork and handle are steadily improving, allowing him to get into his shooting motion from just about anywhere and remain on balance on fadeaways and stepbacks. While he’s still a ways from being at the elite level of a Devin Booker, his improvement from the midrange has been notable and is creating serious issues for defenses facing the Wolves who want to collapse on his drives.

Even with those improvements, attacking the rim is where Edwards creates the most headaches for opponents. Edwards is fearless getting into the paint no matter what center is lurking, but it’s against teams that lack an elite shot-blocker that he becomes unstoppable. Take Monday’s win over Dallas, where he showed his full range of abilities around the basket, speeding past perimeter defenders, absorbing and finishing through contact, throwing a long stride at the end to get a big stuck under the rim, Euro-stepping through a pair of defenders, and more.

What’s scary is this feels like the floor for him as a scorer. While there’s no way to know if his jumper continues to improve, it’s good enough now to keep defenses honest even if he plateaus in terms of efficiency — although, given his prodigious talent, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him continue improving. But if he starts getting calls at a rate that’s more in line with how often he gets to the rim, he could start to add 3-4 points to his scoring average just off of free throws.

Edwards’ .281 free throw rate is among the lowest of the top-20 usage guys in the league, with only Stephen Curry, Jaylen Brown, LaMelo Ball, and Donovan Mitchell below him. That’s particularly notable when you again consider he has the highest rim frequency of any of the non-bigs on the list. That’s where his strength works against him, as does his stature as a first-time All-Star who hasn’t quite earned the same respect of the officials. Edwards absorbs contact and finishes so fluidly that fouls don’t always look like fouls because he muscles through them — his propensity to yell “HEY!” on just about every drive when he gets contact might also not endear him to the officials. Still, the calls will come as his stature rises and he continues to attack the rim, and if that free throw rate creeps closer to the .400 range where most of the league’s elite drivers live, he’s going to see that scoring average take another leap.

All of this is a testament to Edwards’ commitment to putting in the work to round out his skill-set and become more consistent. The talent has been there, but over the last few months, he has started to show a maturity on the court that is impressive for someone who is still just 21 years old. He embraced the challenge from Chris Finch to be more reliable and change the league-wide perception of him on back-to-backs and beyond. He’s also done so as the unquestioned focal point of opposing defenses with Towns on the shelf, and has refused to let that or an ever-changing roster do anything to the upward trajectory of his career.

The result is an All-Star campaign that has kept Minnesota afloat in the crowded and always fluid Western Conference playoff race — currently 8th, but a half-game back of 5th — with the added bonus of shifting his reputation into being one of the league’s most reliable stars. When the playoffs and play-in arrive, the question this year won’t be whether their star shows up at his best every night, and that is a dimension the Wolves have lacked for some time.

In episode 18, season eight of Seinfeld, “The Nap,” (yes, the one where George sleeps underneath his desk and triggers a bomb threat at Yankee Stadium) Elaine walks through the streets of New York with her new love interest (Hal Kitzmiller) and says “I like that stuffed crust pizza,” to which Hal, foolishly responds “It’s just more cheese!”

“Hey, let me tell you something,” Elaine quips. “It’ll be years before they find another place to hide more cheese on a pizza,’

How many years? 26, apparently. But now, after nearly three decades, those beautiful bastards at Papa John’s have finally done it. Enter the new Crispy Parm Pizza.

Available from now until an unspecified limited time, the Crispy Parm Pizza takes Papa John’s thin crust and adds a layer of shredded parmesan and Romano cheeses to the bottom, resulting in a crispy-fied crust that adds another dimension of cheesy notes to your pie. It’s the only way to enjoy thin crust, and extra cheese without, you know, just ordering extra cheese on your pizza.

So is it any good? We found out for you so you don’t have to spend $12.99 to satiate your curiosity. Let’s dive in.

Crispy Parm Pizza

My first job was at a Domino’s and during our free time (which there was a lot of) my fellow employees and I would experiment with the dough to make all sorts of off-menu items that would absolutely dunk on anything we had on the menu. I’ve had a calzone at Domino’s, even though they’ve never made one. I’ve had a Brooklyn-style pizza topped with spicy Chicken Kickers (Dominos side chicken snack). But my greatest creation was what I called the “Double Decker Thin Crust.”

This pizza consisted of a thin-crust pizza dough covered in a layer of cheese and topped with an additional thin-crust pizza dough, smeared with sauce and whatever toppings I was feeling at the moment. This resulted in a pizza that was one part quesadilla, one part stuffed crust, one part pizza, and all parts delicious.

To this day I’ve been waiting for a pizza chain to follow my ingenuity and make something equivalent, The Crispy Parm Pizza is not that, but it comes pretty damn close.

Whether or not you like this pizza is going to come down to how much you like the taste of fried cheese (spoiler: I like it). By covering the entire bottom of the crust with shredded parmesan and Romano that is then baked in an oven, you lose some of the complex nutty and creamy qualities that those cheeses give, but what you do get is a wonderful crispy mouthfeel that snaps with each bite and adds a caramelized, earthy tone to the mix.

My pizza was topped simply with pepperoni and the way the zesty and pepper-forward savory meat flavor played with the salty blend of cheeses tasted great. And yet, if you told me this pizza didn’t have cheese on the bottom of the crust, I might not have noticed. The flavor that it adds to the mix is ultimately very faint unless you go looking for it. In that way, it’s not as significant a change to your pizza as something like stuffed crust, but it is a way to hide more cheese in a dish that consists mostly of cheese.

I wish there was an extra component to this crust that made it feel just a bit more special, as it stands it’s delicious but completely inessential.

The Bottom Line:

Papa John’s found a brand new way to sneak more cheese into a pizza and for that, we commend them. Definitely order this pizza to satiate your curiosity but don’t expect it to blow your mind. If you make pizza at home, this might prove a nice hack but the Papa John’s version is a tasty-though-not-revolutionary concept.

Now my Double-Decker Thin Crust? That would blow your mind. Until someone makes this happen, this is a generally solid consolation price.

Find your nearest Papa John’s here.

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“Sadly, Kaya was recently diagnosed with an untreatable cancer so we have the solemn honor of taking her on what will be her last flight as she goes home to rest where she was born and first met Cole,” the pilot announces as Kaya is met with a series of cheers.

Kaya is then seen being wheeled through the airport, showing nothing but smiles.

Watch the emotional clip below:

See on Instagram

According to NPR, Lyle and Kaya spent their final day together at a few other their favorite haunts—a local Dallas pub, Lyle’s old college stomping grounds, and finally, a pond where Lyle used to study with Kaya accompanying him.

“I just laid with her for several hours, and told her how much I loved her and how loved she was,” Lyle told NPR. “I just wanted her to feel comfortable and happy in her last few hours.”

Thank you for your service, Kaya. You have saved countless lives, and your hard work will undoubtedly save many more.

The best Valentine’s Day cocktails are the ones that you can make easily but also taste delicious with a sexy edge. The Between The Sheets is exactly that. This cocktail is so freaking tasty. The mix of lime, orange, cognac, and light rum come together to make something truly special in a glass.

This cocktail is also pretty damn easy to make. The liquor in the mix is all equal measures. There’s a touch of lime juice that needs squeezing. Otherwise, you just have to shake a cocktail shaker with some ice and prechill a couple of glasses. Anybody can do it.

The best part is that this drink has a lightness to it that’s enticing. The sweet citrus really helps it feel like it’s floating on a cloud. And yes, the name is adequately sultry for the occasion.

All of this makes the Between The Sheets a great Valentine’s Day cocktail — so let’s dive in!

• It’s A Great Weekend For A Bourbon Old Fashioned — Here’s Our Recipe
• The Fall Old Fashioned Is The Perfect Weekend Sipper — Here’s Our Recipe
• This Smoky Negroni Variation Is The Perfect Backyard BBQ Sipper — Here’s Our Recipe
• The Wisconsin Old Fashioned Is Wildly Unique And Perfect For August
• The Revolver Is The Perfect Midwinter Cocktail — Here’s Our Recipe

Between The Sheets

Ingredients:

• 1 oz. cognac
• 1 oz. light rum
• 1 oz. triple sec
• 0.25 oz. fresh lime juice
• Orange peel
• Ice

You don’t have to go crazy with ingredients here. I’m using standard Hine Rare Cognac and Equiano Light Rum. They’re both great for mixing and won’t break the bank. The rest is pretty straightforward.

What You’ll Need:

• Coupe (prechilled)
• Cocktail shaker
• Cocktail strainer
• Paring knife
• Hand juicer

Method:

• Add the cognac, rum, triple sec, lime juice, and ice to a cocktail shaker. Affix the lid and shake the drink vigorously for about 15 seconds or until the shaker is ice-cold to the touch.
• Get the prechilled glass from the freezer and strain the cocktail into the glass.
• Express the oils from the orange peel over the cocktail and rub the peel around the rim and stem of the glass. Discard the peel. Serve.

Bottom Line:

This is so good. It’s light, delicious, and a little boozy. There’s a nice depth of oakiness and dried fruit from the cognac that plays nicely with a hint of funk from the rum with a touch of sugar cane. The lime adds lightness while the orange liqueur sweetens the whole affair. The orange oils at the end are essential in adding to the lightness, sweetness, and softness of the cocktail.

This is a winner for easy cocktail shaking tonight. Trust me, it’ll wow.

Drake has been in the headlines quite a bit recently, given his ties to XXXTentacion’s murder trial. Some might be wondering: what exactly is the Canadian rapper’s connection to it all?

One of the suspect’s lawyers, Mauricio Padilla, tried to subpoena Drake in January before a judge gave a mandatory order that he has to appear for a deposition by February 24 — or he will be held in contempt of court.

Drake’s lawyer, Bradford M. Cohen, has since responded to the deposition filing, according to Rolling Stone.

“No evidence has been provided to substantiate the assertion that [Drake] in any way contributed to, had knowledge of, or participated in the alleged incident, and to mandate that he appear for deposition for something that he very clearly has no relevant knowledge of is unreasonable,” he shared.

Padilla had previously included Drake on a potential witness list, despite the four men already being charged in connection with XXXTentacion’s 2018 death. Earlier this month, the lawyer also alluded to a social media post that supposedly proved Drake’s involvement in the murder.

“If anyone tries to kill me it was @champagnepapi,” XXXTentacion reportedly wrote in an eventually-deleted Instagram Story. “I’m snitching right now.”

However, he later denied the post, writing online, “Please stop entertaining that bullsh*t on Twitter. My accounts were previously hacked.” Padilla did not reference this retraction from XXXTentacion in court.

In addition, back in December, one of the suspects, Robert Allen, allegedly denied Drake’s involvement. Allen testified that he had never met Drake, nor received money from him or any associates. He also was unaware who XXXTentacion was at the time of the murder.

The quest for the best chicken wings recipe continues! Last week, I attempted to test the best chicken wing recipes on the internet and see if I could improve them. I thought I made a pretty valiant effort and even got my new and improved recipe(s) up in time for “the big game.”

Fried wings are hard to beat and fairly straightforward to make, provided you feel like doing all that setup and cleanup. The trick for home cooks and recipe writers is trying to come up with a recipe that combines the crispy skin and juicy meat of fried wings with the simplicity and scale of baked ones (“scale” here means the ability to make a bunch at one time on standard cooking equipment).

Like I said up top, I think I did a decent job accomplishing that with last week’s recipe, combining a pan sear with a shorter bake on a rack. I did, however, run into one problem during testing. Sharp-eyed readers might have noted that I didn’t really have a clear fix for it at the time. Basically, if you’re baking wings on a sheet pan over aluminum foil or parchment paper as I suggested, the fat from the wings has a tendency to drip down into the sheet pan and burn, smoking up the oven and/or the house/dwelling in the process. In my house, this sets off the smoke alarm a lot.

While I didn’t really have a fix for that beyond a better oven, higher ceilings, and less intense baking, one of my readers came through with a proposed solution:

A layer of baking soda on the sheet pan, very interesting… This tip supposedly comes via the Anova Precision Oven subreddit, so thanks to those folks. Naturally, I had to try it out. I made another batch of wings (again, just in time for the “big game”), and SPOILER ALERT: it worked.

And when I say it worked, I don’t just mean that the chicken smoked less, or that my smoke alarm only went off half as many times, I mean there was no smoke at all, that I could detect. I was able to crank the oven as hot and hard as I wanted (heh) without having to wave a terrible towel at my crying wolf-ass smoke alarm every seven minutes.

Clearly, this warranted a rewrite. So here it is, my updated recipe for crispy baked wings.

Ingredients

• 4 pounds chicken wings
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt*
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder*
• 2 teaspoons onion powder*
• Pinch black pepper* (*OR, just use your favorite, pre-mixed seasoned salt blend)
• A little oil (olive, peanut, canola, ghee, whatever)
• About 1/2 cup baking soda

For the sauce:

• 1/2 cup of Frank’s Red Hot
• Stick of butter

Equipment

• A sheet pan with a wire rack that fits over it.
• A pan
• A pot (though you could just reuse the pan)
• Tongs
• Whisk
• Mixing bowl

Time: About 80 minutes.

Directions

Combine your dry spices, baking powder and cornstarch (but NOT the baking soda), and pour it over your chicken. Massage it over your meat. Go ahead, I know you love massaging your meat.

Now, tear off some aluminum foil or parchment paper and use it to cover the bottom of your sheet pan. Take your baking soda and spread it in an even layer over the foil or paper, and then cover that with your wire rack. Now arrange the raw meat on your wire rack. I know how you love arranging your meat over a rack– sorry I’ll stop now.

This step you can do ahead of time and it actually improves the product. Ideally, leave this spiced and lightly coated chicken uncovered overnight in the fridge, though it doesn’t take that long. You just want the skin to dry out a little — probably 30 or 40 minutes would be sufficient.

Now, preheat your oven to 475F. Get your pan on the stove going at medium-high heat. Add a little oil to your pan, enough to coat the bottom. Once it’s almost to smoking, start dropping in your chicken in batches. Heat them in the pan until the skin starts to brown and the skin visibly tightens, and then remove them back to the sheet pan.

Once your meat is all browned and arranged on a rack, cram that meat back into your oven and bake hot and hard for 15 minutes. Then flip it over and cook for 15 more minutes. Note: your chicken drying time, as well as oven type, wing size, and altitude will all affect your cook time. So use your eyeballs (and your nose).

You want your skin nice and crispy but not blackening.

Now make your sauce. Take a pot (or your pan) and heat the hot sauce on low heat. When it juuust starts to bubble, start adding in cubes of cold butter while whisking. When all the butter is incorporated, remove it from the heat.

Once the wings are cooked until crispy, toss them with your sauce, then re-arrange on your rack and bake for five more minutes. (I like the re-baking-with-the-sauce step because it makes the wings slightly less messy. They’re still going to be messy, just slightly less so. You can also re-sauce after for saucier wings).

This was what my foil looked like afterwards:

I rode it hard, cooking the wings at high heat, and partly with sauce on them, which burns even more easily. And still, no smoke. It’s a miracle.

And yes, the wings were pretty good too. Crispy, but still juice, saucy, but not to the point that it was dripping down to your elbows. They were so good that I almost didn’t mind that I’ve eaten wings probably eight different times in the course of the past week. These wings were so good that it was a perfect place to begin my wing fast. It’s going to be a month before I even want to look at a chicken wing again.

Or at least until the next reader comes through with a really good chicken wing recipe tip.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his recipes here.

As Donald Trump mulls over how best to run for president again in 2024, the potential Republican nominee is reportedly laser-focused on giving Americans what they truly need during these trying times of pandemics, inflation, and train disasters:

Public executions.

According to sources, the former president has allegedly been asking associates what they think of firing squads as he mulls a new tough-on-crime initiative that will reportedly go big on public executions that could also could include guillotines, hangings, and group killings by the state. Trump reportedly believes going full dictator on criminals will distinguish him from President Joe Biden, who has notably not tried to behead people in a concerning effort to look badass. Via Rolling Stone:

In at least one instance late last year, according to the third source, who has direct knowledge of the matter, Trump privately mused about the possibility of creating a flashy, government-backed video-ad campaign that would accompany a federal revival of these execution methods. In Trump’s vision, these videos would include footage from these new executions, if not from the exact moments of death. “The [former] president believes this would help put the fear of God into violent criminals,” this source says. “He wanted to do some of these [things] when he was in office, but for whatever reasons didn’t have the chance.”

For the record, an anonymous spokesman for Trump has denied that the former president is trying to bring back firing squads.

“More ridiculous and fake news from idiots who have no idea what they’re talking about,” the spokesman said. “Either these people are fabricating lies out of thin air, or Rolling Stone is allowing themselves to be duped by these morons.”

(Via Rolling Stone)

Last year, UK post-punk group Dry Cleaning unveiled their new album Stumpwork after releasing bewildering music videos and giving hypnotic late-night television performances. They’re back today with the announcement of their new EP called Swampy.

Swampy contains two lost tracks from Stumpwork, “Swampy” and “Sombre Two,” both of which are out now. There’s also a demo of “Peanuts,” as well as remixes of “Hot Penny Day” by Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, and “Gary Ashby” by Nourished By Time.

About the EP, the band said, “These two songs (‘Swampy’ and ‘Sombre Two’) were recorded in the Stumpwork sessions and they feel like good companions to us. They share a dusty, desolate and spacey atmosphere. On the eve of this release we have been touring through the southwest US, where these songs feel at home in the arid, Mars-like landscape of the Arizona desert.”

Florence Shaw told Uproxx in our interview that Stumpwork was a way for the band to experiment with things they hadn’t before: “We’re roaming around and trying out our as-yet unexplored interests. There are wider landscapes of sound on Stumpwork. It’s more romantic at times, maybe more emotional, more vulnerable. It’s also poppier in places.”

Listen to “Swampy” above and “Sombre Two” below.

Swampy is out 3/1 via 4AD. Pre-order it here.

Social media can be a great promotional tool for an up-and-coming rapper, and Maryland’s Foggieraw is proving to be one of the best at using it to its full potential. Over the past few months, his Instagram Reels, consisting of super short, high-concept “music videos,” have gone viral for all the right reasons: The music is distinctive, the cinematography is excellent, and the overall quality is consistent. Foggieraw himself appears to be a charming, laid-back figure, finding an appealing lane outside of the usual bounds of rap archetypes.

Here are a few of those videos:

So, who is Foggieraw?

Foggieraw moved to Maryland from Ghana at just five years old and began rapping at 18. Although he was initially more of a backpack rapper according to one early profile, he soon began to develop a more unique style, somewhere between the cerebral, “everything-must-rhyme” style normally exhibited by adherents to the more traditional genre and the freewheeling style of then-nascent “SoundCloud” or “mumble” rap.

He released an EP, The Foggie Pound, in 2016, and a full-length debut, Fogtavius Vandross, in 2018. Like many young artists, it appears that the pandemic slowed his output, but then came back strong in 2021 with The Foggie Pound 2 and spent 2022 releasing singles such as “Back Home,” “HVNSNT,” “Nothing Usual,” and “Independent Like Webbie.” Throughout the latter half of the year, he shifted focus to his visual rollout on Instagram, garnering supporters like R&B star Ari Lennox along the way.

Foggie’s a rapper on the comeup and it looks very much like he’s due to blow up at any moment. Get on the bandwagon now because it’s only a matter of time.

Whether you loved it or not, people can’t stop talking about Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, which might go down in history as the most watched public pregnancy announcement in the history of the world. While Donald Trump wasn’t impressed by what he called an “EPIC FAIL” of a performance, RiRi somehow managed to overcome the former president’s review and dethrone Taylor Swift as Spotify’s top artist.

Amongst detractors, two of the biggest complaints seemed to be Rihanna’s decision to not turn the halftime spectacle into a who’s who of former collaborators. Yet she was also criticized for “honoring” Kanye West by including “All of the Lights” in her medley of hits — a song she performed with Ye, which appeared on his 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Which only goes to prove that you can’t please everyone — though Sarah Silverman has a pretty solid theory as to why the artist formerly known as Kanye wasn’t invited by Rihanna to participate. As the comedian explained during her first night as The Daily Show’s newest guest host:

Some people were surprised that Rihanna didn’t bring out Kanye West during “All of the Lights.” But when you think about it, it makes sense. Because there wasn’t enough space for her dancers to form a swastika.

While the comment was met with some surprise by the audience, Silverman assured viewers that “I can say that because I’m a Nazi.”

You can watch Silverman’s full review of Rihanna’s performance — and how she upped the bar for pregnant women everywhere — above.