Category: Trending

Strap in, folks, this story has a few layers. Which is why we’re even writing about it in the first place.

It all started, for most of the world, with this New York Times story Tuesday morning, about the mayor of Anchorage, Ethan Berkowitz, abruptly resigning from his office. The reason, Berkowitz said through a spokesman at the time, was his “unacceptable personal conduct.” Conduct which the Times went on to explain involved an “inappropriate texting relationship” with local news anchor Maria Athens.

Mr. Berkowitz’s resignation followed an unsubstantiated claim posted to social media on Friday by the news anchor, Maria Athens, promising viewers an “exclusive” story set to air on upcoming newscasts. Mr. Berkowitz responded by calling the allegations “slanderous” and false, and Ms. Athens shot back by posting what she said was an image of the mayor’s bare backside, with a laughing emoji.

But as political leaders in Anchorage lined up to defend Mr. Berkowitz, the mayor came forward on Monday with an admission: He and Ms. Athens had previously engaged in a “consensual, inappropriate messaging relationship.”

The claim (false, it’s important to note) was that Berkowitz “has his male genitalia posted on an underage girl’s website,” and Athens apparently posted it without her employers’ permission. Leading to an altercation in which she was arrested:

Late Friday afternoon, Athens got into a physical fight with her station manager boss, with whom she was in a romantic relationship, according to court documents.

A charging document in the case says Athens and station general manager Scott Centers fought in a car “about work,” with Athens punching Centers and hitting him with her cell phone. Athens said she grabbed Centers’ arm because he was driving erratically during the argument but denies attacking Centers.

Later, Athens allegedly hit Centers again inside the TV station. When police arrived at the TV station and arrested her, she hit a cop on his vest and tried to kick the doors of the police cruiser, causing police to put her in full restraints, the charging document said. Athens said she did not touch the officer. Also, she said, “I was never in full restraints.”

Athens was charged with misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct and jailed at Hiland Mountain Correctional Center. [Anchorage Daily News]

Athens, it also turned out, prior to going public with their relationship, had left Berkowitz an unhinged voicemail (you really must listen to it) in which she accused him of being a pedophile, called him a “Jew motherf*cker,” said she would kill him, and signed off with “have a great Friday, you motherf*cker,” all in her practiced newscaster voice.

Ethan, it’s Maria Athens from Fox/ABC/CW/News Net National Alaska. Uh, I just learned through my g- my, eh, ah….Emmy-award winning journalism, you’re also a pedophile and like little girls and children, and there’s a website. I’m so f*cking exposing you. I’m gonna get an Emmy. So you either turn yourself in, kill yourself, or do what you need to do. I will personally kill you and Mara Kimmel my god damn self, you Jewish piece of living f*cking sh*t. You have met your match, motherf*cker. You have met your motherf*cking match. I can’t believe- I am such a good person, and thought I loved you. I f*cking hate- I don’t even hate you. I will pray for your Zionist f*cking ass, you piece of sh*t loser. And, I’m putting this on the news tonight. Bye! Have a great Friday, you motherf*cker!

You might naturally wonder what led Maria Athens to believe that her “inappropriate texting” partner was a pedophile. It turns out, it all started with a piece Athens had been doing about a local owner of a shop that sells booze-infused cookies.

The name of the owner and cookie shop have since been scrubbed from the sites that had them, apparently at the request of the cookie shop owner herself. But according to the cookie shop lady’s daughter, who runs an OnlyFans account, her mom was unhappy about her escorting, and during an aside with Maria Athens during the cookie piece, may have convinced Athens that Mayor Berkowitz had been paying her “underage daughter” to escort for him. This even though, according to the daughter, she was neither underage nor familiar with the mayor.

This from the daughter’s tweet thread and the Anchorage Press:

So for a bit of back story, I was an escort in Alaska in 2018. I would get paid to go on dates with men or to keep them company (I never did anything sexual or was paid for sexual favors)

She was obviously still very upset at the idea of her 18 year old daughter escorting. She started asking me questions about who I would work with, and all I told her was that my favorite person I worked with was a man that worked for the state of Alaska.

All I told her about this man was that he worked for the state of Alaska, and that he was short. That’s IT, okay? I didn’t say any names, nothing.

Fast forward to 2020, my mother owns a cookie business that’s doing somewhat successful, and a local news station asked my mom if she would like to do a story about it. My mom said yes and went to the interview.

The interviewer was Maria Athens, who (according to my mother) asked her about what my mom thought about the local anchorage Mayor, Ethan Berkowitz.

My mom asked if he was short. After learning he was short, my mom decided that Ethan Berkowitz was the one I was an escort for.

She went off on a whole story about how I was an escort for Mr. Berkowitz, that he hired me for sexual favors, sent me pictures, etc. because she was receiving attention for what she was saying, and she wanted her five seconds of fame.

I was NOT and escort for Ethan Berkowitz, I don’t know that man and I have NEVER met him. He has never sent me naked pictures or posted any on any of my websites, I have no idea who that man is. Maria Athens is running a fake story in attempts to ruin this mans life.

Also apparently last night she was arrested and that’s why she wasn’t on air.

The Anchorage Press also has a text from “Angelbbx2” (aka Redhead Rae) to her mother trying to get her to call Maria Athens and explain that this was all a case of mistaken identity. But Athens apparently ignored the mom’s calls (the mom says cryptically that Athens “has an agenda”), and soon enough, Athens had already outed Berkowitz on Facebook and sent him that voicemail Anti-Semitic death threat pedophile accusation. Athens seems to have had some kind of mental breakdown between 2015 and the false pedophilia accusation this week, if these clips are any indication. 2020’s mainstreaming of elite pedophile cabal conspiracy theories can’t have helped things.

We should reiterate, Anchorage’s Democratic mayor Ethan Berkowitz resigned over all of this, even though all he has admitted to thus far was a texting relationship with this anchor who clearly has had some kind of mental breakdown. And all this, apparently, over a misinterpreted anecdote during a booze-cookie puff piece.

I think the cookie lady’s daughter summed it up quite well:

Man, this whole thing is like a Coen Brothers movie.

NBA 2K21 will release its next-generation version, with Zion Williamson on the cover, on November 10 when the Xbox Series X/S releases — with the PS5 coming two days later. The first next-gen trailer arrived last week, showing off the tremendous graphics improvements that are possible on the next-gen consoles as they are able to process so much more.

Looking good is one thing, but it doesn’t matter how much each player looks like their real self if the gameplay doesn’t matchup. That is a constant frustration of gamers with sports games, is that there’s too much emphasis placed on realism in appearance but not realism in gameplay and tendencies. On Wednesday, the second Courtside Report from the NBA 2K crew offered a look at some of the gameplay updates coming on the next-gen edition, most notably with how player-to-player contact will improve to be more realistic.

It’s something that is incredibly difficult to translate to the video game space, but it seems the next-gen consoles allow for even better and more realistic contact and reaction to contact in all phases. The first is in on-ball contact, as ball-handlers get bodied by defenders and have to carve their way through that contact to get to the rim, as now running right at a defender will lead to charges and force pickups, while taking the right angles will be rewarded.

At the rim, there is likewise an update in the form of players having to go around defenders and body-to-body contact having a more realistic impact on their ability to go up at the rim.

It certainly looks improved, with players not bouncing off of each other and defenders able to stay locked onto an offensive player and bump them in a much more natural way that impacts their dribbling and shot selection. There’s also updates to off-ball contact, most notably in screens as players will no longer be sucked into screens and contact will be determined by where the screener sets it — and who that screener is — allowing players to go under and over screens with partial contact in a much more realistic way.

There’s also updated dribble control, which they say is rebuilt from the ground up, to get rid of the accidental moments where your player turns the wrong way and allowing you to go where you’re trying in a much easier manner rather than fighting with the dribble system on how you want your guy to move. It all certainly looks nice in these videos and is a truly gorgeous presentation of a basketball game, but until we get it in our hands we won’t be sure exactly how well all of these updates work to improve the gameplay.

There may not have been a better frontcourt scorer than Obi Toppin in all of college basketball last season. As the sun around which Dayton’s system orbited, Toppin was the rare offensive player who was smart enough to feast on the easy stuff and skilled enough to cook up even more. And at 22 and already quite polished, Toppin in this year’s Draft — with a limited pre-Draft process and no tournament tape — is nearly certain to go in the top 10.

A somewhat surprising tweet from Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report from Wednesday morning, however, indicates that Toppin may be even more well-regarded than that.

This may just mean that in a Draft full of maybes and high-variance players, NBA teams are more unanimous in their appreciation of Toppin, not necessarily that he is the most likely player to be selected No. 1 overall. Even those who like Toppin tend to agree he will have some challenges adjusting to the NBA game because of his lack of lateral mobility and athleticism. The positional advantages Toppin had over more traditional lineups as a small-ball center will also be harder to come by as a pro. Still, landing someone who you know is likely to score in the NBA and be a rotation big man (think someone in the mold of John Collins) is enticing in a Draft that is weak at the very top.

The playoffs offer an interesting showcase of what style is dominating the league and which players can hang in that environment. Where does Toppin fit against a Lakers team playing Anthony Davis at center? What’s he to do if he matches up with Giannis Antetkounmpo? This is a high bar to hold a potential pick to, but because he is older and therefore closer to a finished product and because teams seem to be truly considering him more of a top-five option than simply a lottery pick, it’s the bar Toppin must clear if a team is to invest so much in him.

The other factor to consider is what top teams would be giving up if they go with Toppin over a more high-ceiling player like Onyeka Okongwu or Devin Vassell. The value right now of a versatile two-way big like Okongwu or a plug-and-play 3-and-D wing like Vassell is just higher than what Toppin is expected to be. It’s hard to see the league changing in a way that values Toppin’s finishing and spot-up shooting at forward more highly than an elite wing or a potentially dominant center.

Minnesota highlights this well. A top-heavy and offense-first roster with Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell leading the way needs complementary talent far more than a scoring forward. Positionally, the Timberwolves do have openings at forward, but stylistically, what Toppin does is a strange fit alongside the franchise’s two pillars, and he can’t maintain his value playing alongside superstars the same way a more balanced player could.

That balance equation poses the same issue for the Warriors, who will pick second in November’s Draft. They are looking for depth pieces who fit around their Big Three better than the likes of Alfonzo McKinnie and Quinn Cook, who were pressed into action in the 2019 Finals and struggled. It would be odd to see them value Toppin’s skill set over a player who is an even better shooter (Toppin doesn’t have the quickest release and rarely will shoot off movement or pull up from deep) and defender, especially if that player is a wing — it does no seem like a coincidence that Steve Kerr talked up Vassell on Bill Simmons’ podcast this summer.

The Hornets, who pick third this year, observed this challenge in 2019. They selected P.J. Washington, a player who is fairly similar to Toppin. In Washington, they acquired a more experienced and polished player who was a proven shooter, scorer, and good enough defender who could flex between multiple frontcourt positions depending on the lineup. Yet his ceiling is already in full view, and he’s still almost a year younger than Toppin. Charlotte has been more welcome to clear role players in the Draft if they are the best player available where they typically pick in the middle of the lottery, but they are now a roster in real need of star-level talent to make a playoff push.

Chicago is the first team that starts to make sense for Toppin. Having picked in the lottery for so many years now, the Bulls don’t have a particular need at any one spot on the depth chart, so they could afford to take a swing on a less-explosive player who they know will perform well for them. Take note as well of the fact that Toppin’s Dayton coach, Anthony Grant, is a disciple of new Bulls coach Billy Donovan dating all the way back to their time together at Florida, and Toppin could thrive in Donovan’s screen-and-move system, which Grant ran a version of at Dayton.

The Cavs, like the Bulls, possess enough high-ceiling perimeter talent that taking Toppin at No. 5 makes some sense. Cleveland could believe that on their more traditional roster, Toppin could work as a floor spacer and secondary scorer who could thrive getting easy looks from Darius Garland and Collin Sexton. That makes sense in theory and you could see Toppin filling a similar — if less dynamic — role to Kevin Love’s, but Cleveland could run into a similar issue as Minnesota in that exercise, suddenly looking at a roster that is very heavy on offense and short on the type of versatile wing that every great team has in 2020.

Looking through the Draft, it’s not until No. 9 where the Wizards pick that Toppin would be a really snug fit. Washington has a star in Bradley Beal and another in John Wall that they theoretically hope to keep around long-term and remain competitive. Add in another combo forward in Rui Hachimura and interesting wing play-makers like Troy Brown Jr. and Isaac Bonga, and the Wizards theoretically have the type of balanced roster, star power, and depth that could allow them to bring in Toppin and maximize his value right away rather than asking too much of him or forcing him into a challenging role. There are major concerns about what this team would be defensively, but their offense would, theoretically, be quite good.

As the NBA evolves toward the perimeter, having too many guys like Toppin would have drawbacks. It’s difficult to believe in Toppin’s perimeter defense or his jump shot becoming more dynamic, though perhaps his passing continues to evolve and he becomes a great play-maker for his teammates or can create his own shot at a high level. Players like that are just hard to fit into a modern roster unless they are truly elite offensive creators, and it’s hard to see a pathway to that type of output for Toppin right now.

In this Draft, the Dayton big man is clearly a lottery pick. NBA teams often value certainty more than the average fan. But a survey of the top five illustrates the challenges of fitting him onto a young core and why NBA teams would be wise to consider more than just his prolific talent alone before spending that kind of pick on him this November.

With all the ominous happenings of 2020, one of the few bright spots was the re-emergence of children’s television mascot Hip-Hop Harry thanks to Tik Tok, which repurposed a segment from a September 2006 episode as the background music for videos featuring people dancing over the clip.

One of them was burgeoning rap superstar Rico Nasty, who was contacted by the show’s creators for an Instagram Live interview back in August.

However, anyone who missed out on the stream was likely completely flabbergasted on Tuesday, when Rico appeared alongside the bright yellow bear for a PSA about voting posted by Rico’s label Atlantic Records on Twitter. Promoting the voter registration organization HeadCount, the video is filmed exactly like an old-school PSA or an episode of Hip-Hop Harry, with the two staging a Q&A conversation about the importance of voting and how to get registered to vote by visiting the HeadCount website. Rico looks like she’s having the time of her life camp-acting alongside Harry, remixing the meme-worthy “Go! Go! Go!” chant to say “Vote! Vote! Vote!”

If there’s anyone capable of tapping into the demographic that grew up on Hip-Hop Harry, it’s Rico, who has her finger on the pulse of her generation’s unique blend of influences and tastes. She recently showed as much in her surreal videos for “Own It” and “iPhone” as she gears up for the release of her major label debut, Nightmare Vacation.

Watch Harry and Rico’s voting PSA above.

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

Michael C. Hall has always said that there’s a chance he could return as Dexter, and that day is today. Showtime has officially announced that the actor will return in a limited series from original Dexter showrunner Clyde Phillips whose time on the first four seasons resulted in multiple award nominations. The new 10-episode run will pick up after the events of the final season, which saw Dexter faking us his own death and becoming a, uh… lumberjack (?) in one of the more controversial and head-scratching moments in recent TV history. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“Dexter is such a special series, both for its millions of fans and for Showtime, as this breakthrough show helped put our network on the map many years ago,” said Showtime Entertainment president Gary Levine. “We would only revisit this unique character if we could find a creative take that was truly worthy of the brilliant, original series. Well, I am happy to report that Clyde Phillips and Michael C. Hall have found it, and we can’t wait to shoot it and show it to the world.”

Ever since Dexter wrapped up its run in 2013, Hall has stood by the divisive ending. Although, he is sympathetic to how it didn’t provide the right amount of closure to fans, and he’s never closed the door on returning to the serial killer role. In 2018, Hall told The Daily Beast that “different possibilities” have come up on how to bring Dexter back but “they haven’t felt worth doing.” It looks like he finally found the right story to take another stab (sorry) at the role.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Hip-hop fans are in an uproar on Twitter after a tweet from a high-ranking Trump advisor thanking Ice Cube for helping the Trump administration craft its Black outreach program, The Platinum Plan, went viral. On Tuesday, Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist and consultant for the Trump administration, tweeted, “Shoutout to @icecube for his willingness to step up and work with @realDonaldTrump Administration to help develop the #PlatinumPlan. Leaders gonna lead, haters gonna hate. Thank you for leading!”

Thanks to the near-endless deluge of bad news that seems to constantly flood all our timelines, the tweet went unnoticed until suddenly going viral earlier this afternoon. Once it did, Ice Cube’s name trended due to fans expressing their dismay at his perceived betrayal after spending over three decades as a symbol of rebellion against the system due to tracks like “F*ck The Police,” “Good Cop Bad Cop,” “Arrest The President,” and albums such as Amerikkka’s Most Wanted.

In a video posted on Sunday, Cube pre-emptively accepted their shock and disdain for the move, pointing out that he believes that no US president has ever helped Black Americans. He says that he met with representatives from both parties and felt that the Democratic Party didn’t seem to be as accepting of his suggestions as Trump’s administration. “Everybody can be mad at me, pissed off at me, but hey, y’all know what it is,” Cube shrugged. He noted that the Platinum Plan apparently includes a $500 billion commitment toward causes like new jobs for Black communities, higher “policing standards,” and access to better education.

However, that did little to curtail the reactions from fans feeling jilted by the controversial rap icon, who was also chided earlier this year for sharing anti-Semitic memes. Cube previously derided Kanye West for his support of Donald Trump, something many were quick to point out, as well as the seeming about-face he made by seeking to work with the administration himself.

Watch Ice Cube’s video explaining his political position above.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Blackpink: Light Up the Sky (Netflix documentary film) — Fans of the highest-charting female K-pop group in history can now head behind the scenes with Blackpink ahead of their 2019 Coachella performance. As they reach new heights, the quartet will reflect on the highs and lows of fame while cementing their success that shall not be deterred by borders or barriers in language.

2020 Billboard Music Awards (NBC, 8:00pm EST) — Host Kelly Clarkson will be coming at you from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles with performances from Sia, Alicia Keys, BTS, Demi Lovato, Post Malone, and more.

Devils (CW, 8:00pm EST) — Massimo’s feeling betrayed by Dominic, so a plan gets hatched to create a scandal and publish an exposé, but a discovery about Dominic leads to second thoughts.

Coroner (CW, 9:00pm EST) — A body with no ID lands in the middle of the road and few establishing clues, and Jenny is on the case.

Archer (FXX, 10:00pm EST) — Archer’s date gets a peek at a top-secret dossier while the date shares his deepest desires.

Late Show With Stephen Colbert — John Lithgow, Jonathan Alter.

Jimmy Kimmel Live — John Cusack, Leslie Jones

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon — Jim Parsons, Shepard Smith, BTS

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Joan Jett

And in case you wanted to catch up on what happened last Wednesday:

Hubie Halloween (Netflix film) — This movie might be wonderfully funny escapism for you, or it might be Adam Sandler’s revenge for not receiving an Oscar nomination for Uncut Gems. Perhaps it can be both things? Regardless of intent from the Sandman, settle in for the latest Happy Madison production, which follows Sandler’s Hubie Dubois, a Halloween safety crusader who gets sucked into a murder mystery. Kevin James and Kenan Thompson play cops, and more co-stars include Julie Bowen, Ray Liotta, Noah Schnapp, Steve Buscemi, and Maya Rudolph.

Adam McKay’s asteroid comedy Don’t Look Up already had a considerable amount of star power when Jennifer Lawrence joined the Netflix Original back in February, but now the cast is out of this world. (Hope you like space puns.)

In a new tweet, Netflix rightfully shows off the absolutely stacked cast for the new comedy from Oscar winner McKay, and it is quite the list. Just check out the roster that will be joining Lawrence: Leonardo DiCaprio, Rob Morgan, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Himesh Patel, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, and yes, that’s Friends star Matthew Perry down there along with two dudes named Timothée Chalamet and Jonah Hill. Maybe you’ve heard of them.

You can check the star-studded cast of Don’t Look Up below:

According to Variety, the Netflix comedy “follows two low-level astronomers who embark on media tour to warn mankind of an approaching asteroid that will destroy planet Earth.” But even before his film was fully loaded with top stars, McKay was already ecstatic about getting a chance to work with Lawrence.

“I’m so thrilled to make this movie with Jen Lawrence,” McKay said. “She’s what folks in the 17th century used to call ‘a dynamite talent.’ And the fact that Netflix sees this movie as a worldwide comedy sets the bar high for me and my team in an exciting and motivating way.”

The film was originally set to begin filming back in April, but that obviously didn’t occur as the pandemic scuttled productions left and right. However, IndieWire reports that the coronavirus delay “opened the door” for the impressive ensemble cast, particularly DiCaprio, who was eager to join the project but couldn’t due to a scheduling conflict with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. I guess you can say, the stars aligned.

(Via Netflix)

The Miami Heat’s run to the NBA Finals, where they ultimately fell to the now-champion Los Angeles Lakers in six games, was fueled by a handful of things. There was, of course, the singular brilliance of Jimmy Butler, who admirably battled every time he was presented with a challenge and put forth two of the best single-game NBA Finals performances we’ve seen before ultimately running out of gas in the team’s deciding defeat. Their role players, like Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson, gave invaluable contributions in major moments. When the team needed something from bench players like Andre Iguodala and Kelly Olynyk, more often than not, helped more than they hurt.

In the Finals, however, two of the major players that helped get Miami to the Finals and elevated them from a really good team to a championship-caliber team were not themselves. Throughout the postseason, Goran Dragic looked like the player who made an All-NBA team earlier in his career, while Bam Adebayo made a leap into stardom, looking like a two-way menace and the kind of player who is capable of being an irreplaceable piece of a championship-winning team somewhere down the line.

Due to injuries, neither player was able to reach that level of excellence against the Lakers. In a statement that I hope you do not find controversial, I would like to declare the following about the inarguable last sentence: that stinks.

Adebayo and Dragic are a pair of guys whose impact on the Heat, when they are at their best, cannot be replaced. Adebayo’s ability to impact games on both ends of the floor is marvelous. He is a relentless interior scorer, a tireless rebounder, and someone whose ability to handle the ball and make plays on the offensive end of the floor doesn’t seem like it should be possible for a 23-year-old big man whose ceiling still seems like it could be a ways away. Then, you get to what he does on the other end of the floor, where he is the lynchpin of Miami’s frenetic defense and the rare center who is capable of getting switched onto guards and holding his own just as easily as he’s able to clean up mistakes made by his perimeter players by erasing or at least impacting shot attempts at the rim.

The game I kept coming back to as I thought about Adebayo’s postseason was his Game 6 performance against the Boston Celtics. Despite the fact that he picked up some kind of knock during Game 5, he was easily the best player on the floor in a game that featured multiple All-Stars on both sides of the action. He scored 32 points on 11-for-15 shooting, made 10 of his 11 attempts from the free throw line, hauled in 14 rebounds, and doled out five assists. Defensively, Adebayo was the primary defender for spells against many of Boston’s best players, and no one scored more than four points against him, according to NBA.com.

He is such a smart, instinctive player, but during Game 1 of the Finals, Adebayo suffered what was eventually diagnosed as a neck strain, missed the next two games, and didn’t quite look like himself when he returned to the floor. While Miami did get a good game out of him in Game 6 — 25 points, 10 boards, five assists, two blocks – much of that came in the second half (specifically his 10 points, three rebounds, and two assists in the fourth quarter) when things were done and dusted.

It’s not hard to look back on this series and wonder how different things are if Adebayo plays. The Lakers got a ton of shots from within 10 feet, and when they didn’t go in, their offensive rebounding numbers were breathtaking. While guys like Olynyk and Meyers Leonard battled admirably at the 5, the drop-off from what they can do on both ends of the floor and what Adebayo can do at his best is stark. His ability to navigate the two-man game was taken off the table, too, both during the games he missed and when he returned and didn’t look like himself. He was also the most logical person to defend Anthony Davis, and without him, the team’s defensive versatility suffered — the Davis-LeBron James two-man game becomes a bit tricker to pull off when it’s the best version of Adebayo and one of Butler/Jae Crowder instead of just those two, or one of them and Leonard/Olynyk.

And of course, there is losing the playmaking Adebayo brings at his best, something that was magnified by Miami’s other huge loss. Before even getting to what he brought on the court, Dragic has long been a good player on teams that could never quite make it to the promised land. Prior to this year, he had made the conference finals once as a member of the Phoenix Suns back in 2010. He’d make the playoffs twice in the decade since then before the Heat got in this year, bowing out in the conference semis in 2016 and the first round a year later. As is the case whenever a veteran who has had a long career makes it to the Finals, there’s something really cool about a guy getting over the hump for the first time.

Fifteen minutes into his first Finals game, Dragic suffered a foot injury which later was revealed to be a plantar fasciitis injury. In the time it takes to throw breakfast together, Dragic’s aspirations of contributing in the NBA Finals were taken for him. While he went through warm-ups before Games 2-5, he ultimately just was not able to play. Dragic eventually returned to the series in Game 6, giving Miami 19 minutes off the bench.

Miami’s balance on offense was thrown off without Dragic on the floor. Butler taking over the lion’s share of ball-handling duties isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but taking Dragic off the floor meant more on-ball responsibilities for, say Kendrick Nunn (who had some moments but generally looked like a rookie in the NBA Finals against an elite defense) or Herro, for whom the same sentiment can apply. Herro was especially hurt by Dragic’s absence, as he went from being a really good supporting piece to someone thrust in the spotlight and suddenly garnered the attention of the Lakers top perimeter defenders. He’ll learn and get better from the experience, but through the lens of these Finals, it did not go well. And when the team opted to go to the steady hand of Iguodala, things went poorly — while a good player, he posted, by far, the team’s worst net rating in the Finals. Herro, unsurprisingly, was third-worst, and sandwiched in-between those two was Adebayo.

This is not to say the Heat would’ve won the series with Adebayo and Dragic not suffering their Game 1 injuries, as the Lakers were heavy favorites going into the Finals for a reason, but poorly-timed injuries are one of the worst things about sports. Things may have ended the same way or maybe it would’ve gone very differently, but after a Bubble that featured some of the highest level basketball we’ve seen in an entire postseason, it was a disappointing end to see two of the brightest stars not able to be on the floor and at their best.

While Lizzo is known for making buoyant, feel-good tunes, she’s also always been outspoken when it comes to matters of social justice. In an upcoming episode of David Letterman’s Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Lizzo recounts her experience witnessing the Black Lives Matter movement over the years.

Speaking to Letterman about watching the country react to acts of police violence had made her numb. However, seeing the immense allyship following the murder of George Floyd this June has made her feel “hopeful” for the first time:

“As a Black citizen of this country, I’ve been heartbroken by the way we’ve been treated and seen my entire life. I remember there was a murder of a young Black person, unarmed, in Minneapolis down the street from my house. His name was Jamar Clark. I wrote this song called ‘My Skin’ and I was very like, ‘We gotta make a change.’ We were camping out in front of the precinct, we were getting shot at by God-knows-who. It was scary, it was dark times. And then, Tamir Rice, who was 12 years old, was just playing at a park and got shot within seconds by a police officer. Within seconds, a young, Black, 12-year-old boy. And people politicized it. How can you politicize the murder of a child? And I was so numb that I lost all hope for any kind of change in this country.

Change is painful and I think you have to sign yourself up for that. This time, I saw something different. I saw the sudden allyship of young white people, which I had never seen. And I also saw people in the news realize that it’s more than just a hashtag and a moment and a movement and that it’s not just us complaining — it’s a real, systemic poison. And that got me for the first time a little hopeful. […] I can’t help but to be optimistic and hopeful.”

Watch a clip of Lizzo’s interview with Letterman above.

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