Category: Viral

Rich Paul and the folks at Klutch Sports were busy on Friday night, as they were wheeling and dealing amid the free agency frenzy as the NBA’s league year began in earnest at 6 p.m. ET.

The first big Klutch client to sign was Draymond Green, who had a 4-year, $100 million deal worked out with the Warriors as soon as free agency began. That was followed by Jerami Grant getting a 5-year, $160 million deal from the Portland Trail Blazers, as they had to keep him long-term to satiate Damian Lillard — and also because they had no cap space to replace him if he walked. From there, Fred VanVleet got the eye-popping deal of the night with a 3-year, $130 million max deal from the Houston Rockets, as they leveraged the third year out of Houston after Toronto came to the table with a reported 4-year, $120 million offer.

It was quite the night for the Klutch team, and it came amid some rumblings of discontent in Klutch land after Omar Wilkes left the agency to join Fanatics and two of his top clients, OG Anunoby and Anthony Edwards, left the agency as well. With that as a backdrop, LeBron James decided to puff his chest out for his good friend Rich Paul after he orchestrated $390 million worth of deals for the three biggest Klutch free agents, and send a message to those who had departed.

LeBron has never been shy about heaping praise on his friends and, at this point, isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers in the league if needed to do so. This is clearly a message he’s trying to send about Klutch being just fine even with the rumors about Paul and the agency’s future, and it’s hard to blame him on a night where Klutch secured three of the biggest deals of free agency out of the gate.

Seth Curry entered free agency this summer as one of the top shooters on the market, but as the league has moved away from specialists, it remained to be seen what would be out there for the sharpshooting guard.

Curry averaged 9.2 points per game on 46.3/40.5/92.7 shooting splits in Brooklyn last year, but found himself in a less than ideal roster situation, particularly after the trade deadline. The Nets had a number of wings and not a lot of ball-handlers, which tasked Curry with being more of a point guard than he is comfortable being (per Basketball-Reference, 35 percent of his time on the court was as a point guard). Where he goes next will likely need to be somewhere with a more defined off-ball role for him, where he can thrive as a spot-up shooter, which remains his elite NBA skill. On a smaller Nets team towards the end of the season, his skillset was not a great fit and he struggled to find the same level of success he in previous stops where he was able to play in a more comfortable role.

As free agency began, Curry ended up looking to go back to one of those previous stops, as he agreed to a two-year deal with the Dallas Mavericks, per Adrian Wojnarowski.

Last time Curry was in Dallas he averaged 12.4 points on 49.5/45.2/82.5 shooting splits, as he very much enjoyed being a floor-spacer for Luka Doncic. Now he’ll go back to that role, bringing some bench shooting pop for Doncic and Kyrie Irving, who Dallas re-signed earlier in the night, and hope that a return to a comfortable situation can again bring out the best in him. For Dallas, it’s a good value signing on a guy whose reputation has dipped over the last year or two, but they will know how to maximize him and he has a rapport with their top stars already.

All things considered, Dennis Schröder’s return to the Los Angeles Lakers went pretty well. After famously failing to agree to a lucrative extension with the team during his last stint with the team and spending the 2021-22 season with the Boston Celtics and the Houston Rockets, Schröder put pen to paper on a 1-year deal to head back to L.A.

One year later and Schröder finds himself in a similar spot, as he is on the unrestricted free agent market and has the ability to sign with any team he wants, with the major difference being his stock is a bit higher than it was at this point last offseason. After seeing a number of big names sign early on Friday evening, Schröder waited out the point guard market and cashed in big time when Fred VanVleet spurned the Raptors to take a three-year max in Houston. With Toronto rather desperate for a new starting point guard in their quest to stay competitive, having already re-signed Jakob Poeltl, Schröder was able to get a 2-year, $26 million deal from the Raptors.

Schröder started in the backcourt for the Lakers during most of last season, although he lost the starting nod towards the end of the regular season and for much of the postseason as Darvin Ham preferred to start the duo of D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves in the backcourt. On the year, Schröder appeared in 66 games with 50 starts, and averaged 12.6 points and 4.5 assists in 30.1 minutes per game. Getting the full mid-level from the Raptors is a significant win for Schröder, who has seen taking his time to get a deal backfire in the past but this time got rewarded with more money than I think most expected him to get.

Toronto gets a veteran replacement they desperately needed to keep their plan of running it back from falling apart, and now go into the season with a slightly shuffled backcourt, hoping to find a spark that didn’t exist a year ago.

Zac Brown Band is currently touring across North America through the fall, hitting stops like Boston’s Fenway Park, two sold-out nights in New Hampshire, Maryland’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, and more until November — when the shows currently close in Tampa, Florida.

Over the next few months, fans might be wondering what songs that they can expect to hear at the country concert. Based on Zac Brown Band’s recent concert in Wisconsin (and another being held tonight in Columbus), some covers and special surprises were also sprinkled in.

Continue scrolling for Zac Brown Band‘s most recent concert setlist, according to Setlist FM. For more information on the tour, tickets, and additional dates, visit their official website here.

1. “Homegrown”
2. “Day For The Dead”
3. “As She’s Walking Away”
4. “Toes”
5. “Uncaged”
6. “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” (The Charlie Daniels Band cover)
7. “Keep Me in Mind / Superstition” (with BRELAND)
8. “It’s Not OK”
9. “Jump Right In”
10. “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen cover)
11. “Whiskey’s Gone”
12. “Same Boat”
13. “Sweet Annie”
14. “Out In The Middle”
15. “Sabotage” (Beastie Boys cover)
16. “Loving You Easy”
17. “Tomorrow Never Comes” (Acoustic open)
18. “Goodbye In Her Eyes”
19. “Knee Deep”
20. “Paint It Black” (The Rolling Stones cover)
21. “Beautiful Drug”
22. “Colder Weather / Take It To The Limit”
23. “America The Beautiful” (cover)
24. “Chicken Fried”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

As expected, Fred VanVleet entered free agency this summer after declining his player option in Toronto, joining a loaded point guard market this summer.

VanVleet is coming off of a solid 2022-23 campaign, averaging 19.3 points, 7.2 assists, and 4.1 rebounds per game on 39.2/34.2/89.8 shooting splits. He saw a dip in his typical three-point efficiency, posting his worst shooting season of his career from beyond the arc, but that was partially a product of the shooting around him — Toronto was 28th in the NBA in three-point percentage. The biggest question facing VanVleet in free agency was how the rest of the point guard market would shake out around him, with Kyrie Irving and James Harden as free agents.

After Harden opted in to his player option to facilitate a trade and Kyrie Irving re-signed with Dallas, VanVleet was the biggest name available and that led to a bidding war between Houston and Toronto that the Rockets won out on, inking VanVleet to a massive 3-year, $130 million deal, per Adrian Wojnarowski.

For weeks, there were rumors Houston was going to offer a 2-year, $83 million deal to try and lure him out of Toronto, but as Friday rolled around, they were apparently willing to make a 4-year, $120 million deal to give him the longevity he sought. The Rockets, seeing most of the top names already gone, were determined to make a splash and tacked a third year onto VanVleet’s max deal to give him more money than Toronto’s total offer over a shorter timeframe, ensuring Ime Udoka got the defensive-minded point guard he wanted in Houston.

It’s quite the financial commitment to VanVleet, but Houston had gobs of money this summer and had to spend it. While they hoped to clear their books in two years when extensions started kicking in for their rookies, they had to pony up the third year to get VanVleet and now they will hope he can live up to a massive deal.

It’s hard for a player who was selected in the lottery to suit up for three separate teams on their first contract, but that exact thing has happened to Cam Reddish. A former 5-star recruit who played alongside Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett at Duke, Reddish was selected 10th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks, with the hope being that he could be a dynamic, two-way wing and a perfect complement to Trae Young.

Instead, Reddish was never really able to establish himself as a consistent option in Atlanta, got traded midway through the 2021-22 season to the New York Knicks, struggled to earn Tom Thibodeau’s trust, and was once again moved at the trade deadline last year, with the Portland Trail Blazers taking a flier on him. All of this made Reddish one of the more intriguing names on the free agent market, as it is incredibly difficult to get a read on what his value is, especially after the Blazers elected not to tender a qualifying offer.

On Friday, Reddish reportedly agreed to a two-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers, first reported as a multi-year deal by Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times and later noted to be a two-year pact by Shams Charania of The Athletic.

Reddish appeared in 40 games last season, which were split in half between the Knicks and the Blazers. He averaged 9.7 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in 24.8 minutes per game between those two teams, and shot 44.6 percent from the field. He will join a Lakers team that is loading up around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, with the reported additions of Gabe Vincent and Taurean Prince, in addition to the re-signing of Rui Hachimura.

Rui Hachimura was an important piece of the puzzle for the Los Angeles Lakers as they rebuilt their team at the trade deadline last year. After starting his professional career with the Washington Wizards, Los Angeles was able to acquire Hachimura ahead of the deadline for Kendrick Nunn and a collection of second-round NBA Draft picks.

In theory, he was a snug fit on the team’s roster, as his offensive versatility and ability to score is crucial alongside the pairing of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. All of that ended up coming to fruition, and Hachimura performed well enough during his stint with the Lakers that reports indicated that the team wanted to do whatever it could to keep him, even though he was slated to become a restricted free agent and had the ability to agree to an offer sheet with a new team. On Friday night, after making some moves with their exceptions, the Lakers agreed to a 3-year, $51 million deal with Hachimura to keep him in L.A.

While Hachimura’s numbers took a bit of a step back once he arrived in Los Angeles — he averaged 9.6 points in 22.4 minutes per game while only connecting on 29.6 percent of his attempts from three — he was able to find his form during the playoffs, which was a major reason why the Lakers found themselves in the Western Conference Finals. During the team’s postseason run, Hachimura averaged 12.2 points per game and hit 48.7 percent of his attempts from behind the three-point line.

The Lakers, who also added Gabe Vincent and Taurean Prince on Friday night, now face decisions on D’Angelo Russell and Dennis Schröder, with Austin Reaves’ deal (which seems like a mere formality) also still to come.

Kevin Love’s time in Cleveland finally came to an end after 8.5 seasons — four of which were spent with Love constantly in trade rumors — when he was bought out by the Cavs after the trade deadline. The veteran forward was picked up by the Miami Heat, who brought him in to bolster their frontcourt and bring some added spacing, and while he had a rocky regular season as a shooter, he regained his shooting stroke come playoff time, starting 18 playoff games for the Heat in their run to the Finals.

That postseason run proved he can still contribute in a limited role for a team needing a pick-and-pop/spot-up threat from the power forward spot. After rumblings he was under consideration by the Lakers and Suns, two star-studded Western Conference contenders looking for veteran minimum additions, Love decided to return to the Heat after finding a comfortable spot last season, per Tim Reynolds.

Love averaged 7.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in 20 regular season games for Miami last season, with similar production in the postseason (6.9 points and 5.6 rebounds) on improved shooting, knocking down 37.5 percent of his threes in the Heat’s run to the Finals. After seeing Gabe Vincent and (likely) Max Strus leave, retaining Love became increasingly important for a Miami team that was facing having to replace a number of playoff contributors.

Over the past few months, social media has heavily focused on a suspected feud between Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez — over Justin Bieber, even years after Gomez split from him. TikTok users had accused both women of copying each other and sending hate to each side.

Hailey Bieber now opened up about the toxicity in a recent interview with Bloomberg’s The Circuit.

“I don’t think that this is about me, Hailey Bieber, and Selena Gomez,” she said, according to Rolling Stone. “This is not about this pitting between two women and division between two women — it’s about the vile, disgusting hatred that can come from completely made-up and twisted, and perpetuated narratives that can be really dangerous.”

“Because of a guy? It’s awful. I hate it,” Bieber added. “I’ve hated it since the beginning, and it goes back to being misunderstood. Time and time again, I don’t know why I keep having to say that there is no issue and there is no problem. It’s so disappointing that people still behave this way over a man.”

Gomez had even tried to put a stop to the social media hate, posting on her Instagram story that she and Bieber were in contact to fix the negativity and “death threats.”

While things have thankfully calmed down a bit since then, Bieber did feel it was the right chance to speak and set things straight.

Veteran wings are at a premium in the modern NBA, and Josh Richardson fits the bill. The former Tennessee Volunteers standout is an eight-year veteran of the league, though Richardson has bounced around in recent years, appearing for five teams in the last four seasons. Richardson finished the 2022-23 campaign in a New Orleans Pelicans uniform, playing 23 games after appearing 42 times for the San Antonio Spurs during the same season.

Richardson averaged 10.1 points per game while shooting 36.5 percent from 3-point range overall in 2022-23, and he has averaged double figures in seven consecutive seasons. He will turn 30 years old before the start of the 2022-23 season, but Richardson remains a strong defender and a versatile piece that is malleable into the majority of perimeter contexts. Notably, Richardson has also converted 38.8 percent of his three-point attempts combined over the last two seasons (539 attempts).

Next season Richardson will return to the team that drafted him, as Shams Charania reported he will sign a two-year deal with the Miami Heat, with a player option on the second year.

Richardson will be part of the Heat’s effort to replace Gabe Vincent and (almost assuredly) Max Strus. The former is headed to the Lakers while the latter is expected to join the Cavaliers in a sign-and-trade. Richardson will give Erik Spoelstra another veteran 3-and-D option as Miami looks to reset its backcourt rotation a bit after another trip to the Finals.