Episode 9 of The Last Dance begins with the 1998 Chicago Bulls’ quest to beat the Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals, but in order to provide some context to that series, things jump back to the previous year’s Finals, which pitted the two sides against one another. Chicago, of course, would go on to win that series in six games, marking championship number two in their second three-peat.

Michael Jordan had plenty of motivation in that series, primarily Karl Malone winning the league’s MVP Award for the 1996-97 campaign. But before that happened, the seeds for Jordan to go off in the series were planted back in 1995, while Jordan was still playing baseball.

Utah was in Chicago to take on the Bulls, and Jordan decided to pay a visit to Malone and John Stockton. While he was there, we learned, young Jazz forward Bryon Russell decided to get chirpy with Jordan.

“Pssh, OK, Bryon Russell?” Jordan recalled. “When I was playing baseball, Utah was in town to play the Bulls. They were practicing at the facility, I go over to say hi to John and Karl, and this kid Bryon Russell comes up to me and says, ‘Man why you quittin? Why you quittin? You know I could guard your ass, I couldn’t wait, you had to quit.’ I said, ‘Karl, you need to talk to this dude, man.’ ‘Nah, he’s just a young rookie.’ But from that point on he’s been on my list.”

Russell could have done a better job checking Jordan, as the Bulls star went for 32.3 points, seven assists, and six steals a game in the series. Jordan, it turns out, knew exactly how to react Russell.

“I knew how he played,” Jordan said. “He played on the front of his toes. Give him a head and shoulder fake and go one way, he can’t stop it.”

While Russell battled, Jordan just knew what to do and was able to execute to perfection.

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Friends has remained as popular today as it was when it began airing over 25 years ago, and it’s done so despite not exactly jibing with the politics of today. One complaint: Its all-white cast, which seemed far-fetched then and especially so now. Its cast would agree with that. Speaking to The Sunday Times (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), Lisa Kudrow pondered what a rebooted Friends would look like in 2020.

“It’d be completely different,” the erstwhile Phoebe Buffay said. “It would not be an all-white cast, for sure.”

Indeed, it wasn’t only the main sextet who were Caucasian; most, though not all, of the supporting characters and guest stars were, too. Modern thinkpieces on Friends, which celebrated its quarter-of-a-century anniversary last fall, criticize some of its politics, from the copious fat-shaming of young Monica to its whitewashed portrayal of Manhattan. Kudrow argued that it “should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong.”

She also defended it a bit, pointing out it was ahead of the curve on many other social issues, including its positive portrayal of Ross Geller’s ex Carol (Jane Sibbett), who leaves him and marries another woman (played by Jessica Hecht).

“There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together?” Kudrow pointed out. “We had surrogacy, too. It was, at the time, progressive.”

Kudrow’s comments come a few months after David Schwimmer made similar comments to The Guardian, saying he was “well aware of the lack of diversity” on the show, and that he campaigned to have Ross date non-white women.

“One of the first girlfriends I had on the show was an Asian-American woman, and later I dated African American women,” Schwimmer said in January. “That was a very conscious push on my part.”

Friends is currently in limbo, its 236 episodes having left Netflix at the turn of last year, but it’s due for HBO Max when it launches on May 27. The reunion special, which was to have dropped on that date as well, had to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, but surely they’ll have plenty to talk about whenever it finally happens.

(Via The Sunday Times and EW)

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I feel like this batter dispenser may even motivate me to bake, tbqh.

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The Last Dance has not just thrust Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls back into the forefront of sports fans’ minds, but it’s also brought back plenty of nostalgia and discussion of the 90s NBA as a whole.

With no actual basketball to create conversation and debate, many have begun relitigating arguments about what teams were the real biggest threats to the Bulls in the 90s, what players were the best of that era, and the ever-nauseating “how would current players fare in the 90s NBA’ discussion. The good news of that is it’s given a new generation a chance to appreciate players from that era and give some shine to some players that many know better now for their post-hoops career than their playing career.

On Sunday, prior to the final episodes of The Last Dance, Ahmad Rashad will be taking over the NBA’s social media accounts for an “Inside Stuff 90’s Reunion” that fans can watch at 7 p.m. ET on the NBA Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch accounts. Rashad will be joined by a who’s who of NBA stars from the 90s, as the league announced a long lineup of players that will be hopping on to talk with Rashad — and it’s important to note that the release notes “other surprise guests” are expected to appear as well.

Muggsy Bogues
Dell Curry
Clyde Drexler
Patrick Ewing
Tim Hardaway
Grant Hill
Robert Horry
Shawn Kemp
Karl Malone
Reggie Miller
Dikembe Mutombo
Gary Payton
Mitch Richmond
David Robinson
John Stockton
Dominique Wilkins

It’ll be cool to see all of these legends from the 90’s telling stories and looking back on that era, reminiscing on the battles with Jordan’s Bulls and others.

It must suck to be hated by the people who make your favorite things. On Sunday, Elon Musk — one of the richest people in America — semi-cryptically tweeted “Take the red pill” alongside a socialist red rose emoji. He was clearly invoking a key moment from the movie The Matrix, but more specifically he was referring to his increasingly public derision for nationwide quarantines, which have shut down the economy and caused people like him to lose a miniscule fraction of their unimaginable wealth. Musk’s tweet wasn’t all that well-received, but it did have a fan in Ivanka Trump. One person who disapproves of both of them: one of the creators of The Matrix itself.

That would be Lilly Wachowski who, alongside her sister Lana, wrote and directed the Matrix trilogy, as well as Bound, Jupiter Ascending, and Sense-8. (Lana is handling the forthcoming fourth Matrix solo.) When she saw that Trump had retweeted Musk, lending her support with an excited “Taken!”, she could not remain silent.

“Take the red pill” refers to a scene early in the first Matrix, in which Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus offers Keanu Reeves’ Neo two options: a blue pill, which will cause him to forget he ever learned about the truth behind his artificial world and go on living a lie, or a red pill, which will wake him up. According to Business Insider, the phrase has been co-opted by those on the far right, denoting those who’ve converted to the side of Donald J. Trump.

Wachowski’s curt response — a simple “F*ck both of you” — was well-received on Twitter.

Some also pointed out that The Matrix — made by trans women, whose rights and safety are routinely under assault by the current Republican administration — is not one that should be co-opted by wingers.

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It was a very long time ago — i.e., last November — but perhaps you remember the president of the United States sharing an image of his head badly superimposed upon Sylvester Stallone’s ripped bod circa Rocky. Sharing such content is something he likes to do, allowing him to cosplay as things he’s not, such as strong and ripped and not addicted to McDonald’s. On Saturday Donald Trump was at it again, this time sharing a video that awkwardly drops his head into a key scene from Independence Day. And the actor whose face he usurped was not exactly pleased.

The scene was, predictably, the one where the president, played by Bill Pullman, delivers a rousing speech before humanity strikes back against their alien attackers. As with the Rocky picture, it’s not clear who made it, as Trump — who’s been accused of stiffing contractors and who’s dubiously claimed credit for what was, until recently, a strong economy — credited no one. But it is obvious why he shared it: If he seems incapable of delivering a powerful speech that unites everyone against a common foe, and indeed tends to read pre-written speeches like a drugged-up somnambulist, he might as well pretend he can.

Pullman himself didn’t appear to be pleased. The video retains his voice, simply superimposing Trump’s head upon his shoulders. The Hollywood Reporter reached out to him to see what he thought, and he chose his words carefully. “My voice belongs to no one but me, and I’m not running for president — this year,” the actor told them.

Pullman returned to the role of President Thomas J. Whitmore in the 2016 sequel Independence Day: Resurgence, which arrived mere months before Trump was elected actual president. The video, meanwhile, doesn’t stop by inserting Trump into a beloved scene; it also works in such supporters as Sean Hannity, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz, even James Woods, who played a rightwing villain in Independence Day director Roland Emmerich’s 2013 thriller White House Down — his last major role before retiring.

(Via THR)