Category: Worldwide

Mikal Bridges is spindly. Seventy-eight inches tall, 85 inches across from finger tip to finger tip, 209 pounds heavy. While not the bulkiest dude in the league, the length overshadows this hurdle, guaranteeing it’s one he can clear and is not tripped up by as he carves out an NBA career. Approaching the conclusion of his second season with the Phoenix Suns, Bridges has solidified himself as a complementary player next to Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, providing necessary skills alongside the franchise cornerstones.

Bridges’ length permeates throughout the entirety of his game, particularly on defense. The 23-year-old is soon to be a mainstay in All-Defensive team discussions for the foreseeable future. While he’s probably a small, yet existent, rung below that caliber at the moment, he should garner some consideration from voters for his 2019-20 campaign. Tasked with an array of responsibilities all season, he’s quite superb already.

Among 49 players (min. 500 minutes) classified as “Wing Stoppers” by Basketball Index, Bridges spent the sixth-most time defending All-NBA assignments at 12.3 percent. These duties ranged across positions, too. Against the Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Mavericks, for example, he’s defended LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Luka Doncic, and Kristaps Porzingis. He is comfortable guarding anyone, 1-4, as evidenced by the fact that 8.6 percent of his minutes come against centers and the rest come against individuals who play the other four positions, according to Basketball Index. The crux of this versatility is his length, which helps compensate for a lack of functional strength and swift foot speed.

Bridges weaponizes his 7’1 wingspan to smother opponents and it increases his margin of error. If someone scoots a step by him or leverages their strength advantage to generate space, he’s still equipped to alter shots or combat drives because his reach is widespread. He can contest shots from a rearview and his sublime body control enables him to contort himself in a distinct manner to avoid fouls while maintaining a presence in the play. Applying his quick hands like pinball flippers, he strips ball-handlers and overwhelms them on the perimeter to spur turnovers. Merge that with his shot alteration capabilities and Bridges is a staunch on-ball defender, even though bigger wings (think Luka and LeBron) can pose issues.

The best form of defense is deterrence, whether it be snuffing out an entire action, dissuading shots, or forcing takeaways. If an offense can’t dictate the possession and has to adjust its approach because of the opposition, that’s usually a win for the defense. This is where Bridges shines, and it might be the most valuable portion of his defensive impact, a lofty sentiment given his on-ball exploits. His best component of deterrence is thwarting dribble hand-offs. With sprawling arms, Bridges is a menace blowing up this action. His screen navigation permits him to warp around picks in a jiffy and remain tethered to players.

Bridges is positionally sound and cognizant of team defense requirements, predominantly as the weak-side helper in pick-and-rolls or at the nail on drives. He has a proclivity for darting in to snare passes or prompting teams to redirect plays outside the jurisdiction of his limbs. Many of his steals stem from intelligent reads and rotations, but other times, it’s as though people simply underestimate his combination of length and reactionary speed (1.9 steals per 36 minutes for his career).

When they do properly price these traits into the equation, he moonlights as a shutdown cornerback, closing off a segment of the court or denying his assignment a chance to organize the possession as they prefer. You have to be especially precise delivering passes near his orbit. And don’t try aimless entry passes around him, because he gobbles those up which means you can’t easily exploit him in the post, which contributes to his versatility. He’s a risk-taking maven, prepared to wisely gamble without amassing voluminous foul rates (2.9 fouls per 36 minutes in two seasons). Steals and swats headline Bridges’ defensive highlight reels, but equally important are the instances in which his length and positioning subtly reroute offensive sets. Both are essential to fostering the defensive impact he does.

The eye test operates in concordance with the numbers, too. Bridges’ positional versatility, frequency of All-NBA matchups, and blend of on- and off-ball prowess are reinforced by Defensive Player Impact Plus-Minus. Not only does he undertake strenuous assignments up and down the lineup sheet, he performs well in them. He ranks sixth in DPIPM (plus-1.72) among 49 “Wing Stoppers.” Across all archetypes outside of centers — DPIPM can skew heavily in their favor and blurs how well perimeter players fare compared to their contemporaries — he is 26th overall this season.

Fewer than two seasons into his career, Bridges has established himself as a starting-caliber player on a team eyeing the playoffs. His defense is sterling, but sustained offensive development is the tipping point of his long-term standing league-wide and why he could emerge as a top-30ish guy at his peak.

Coming out of Villanova, he was rightfully billed as a high-level shooting prospect, having netted 40 percent of his 428 long balls in three seasons. But sometime during the pre-draft process, he developed a hitch in his mechanics, which were subdued for a period before prominently resurfacing midway through his rookie year. He shot just 33.5 percent from deep last season and was hesitant to let it fly too often, failing to provide the floor-spacing Phoenix expected and desired. For one reason or another, Bridges didn’t trust his jumper enough and there seemed to be some confidence eroded. While he’s not returned to the ilk of his collegiate tenure, the hitch, primarily evident on wide open shots, seems to have mostly dissipated in recent months.

No longer does he pause at the start of his windup, extend the ball out and shoot. The other hitch, one more difficult to notice, occurred when he’d situate the ball at his left hip and swing it around to the top of his head. Neither is prevalent anymore and since Dec. 1, he’s shooting 38.3 percent (62-for-162) from deep, returning to his previous two-motion approach. Contrast clips from his rookie year and pre-hiatus second season with his jumper in Orlando. You’ll notice a more fluid release (programming note: the first play is slowed to emphasize the elongated path the ball travels).

The next step of Bridges’ renaissance is becoming a more proficient and frequent threat above the break. Phoenix loves to station him in the corners, but it’s limited his credibility and impact in other spots around the arc. Through two years, he’s converted 35.1 percent of his corner threes and 33.9 percent of his above-the-break triples. Corner threes compose 47.6 percent of his total attempts, while above-the-break looks compose 52.4 percent of them. Both seasons, he’s ranked higher than the 70th percentile in corner three frequency among wings and lower than the 50th percentile in non-corner three frequency, according to Cleaning the Glass (CTG). Even during his stretch from Dec. 1 onward this year, he’s still only knocked down 33.3 percent of his long balls outside of the corners. Being effective from the corners has utility, but those zones constitute a small fraction of the three-point line. To emerge as the floor-spacer his offensive ceiling includes, he must expand his volume and success rate above the break.

The reason Bridges routinely inhabits those corners is because of his cutting expertise. He is truly one of the NBA’s premier cutters, ranking in the 89th percentile on cuts this season and 84th percentile last season. In addition to striking at the proper times, what makes him so effective in this role is his finishing; this also manifests on the break, where he whizzes through creases of the defense for early offense scores (93rd percentile in transition efficiency, according to Synergy). He’s shooting 72 percent at the rim this year (93rd percentile, per CTG) and his length/contortion empower him to score around size from distinct angles. Considering the low-usage nature of his responsibilities on that end and the gravitational pull Booker’s three-level scoring elicits, rostering someone who understands how to manufacture offense without the ball is a snug fit for the Suns.

If Bridges continues this upward trajectory as a shooter, the ancillary gears of his offense will be amplified. Not only is he an instinctive cutter, he’s well-versed in the relocation game, aware of when to migrate around the perimeter to broaden or construct passing outlets for open threes. If defenders have to close out aggressively more often, he’s suited to attack off the catch, eat up space with bounding strides and exercise his finishing craft or interior passing chops. Timid, slightly imperfect closeouts also present opportunities for him because of the way he envelops real estate and can reach the basket in one dribble. Phoenix’s offensive scheme excels at tilting defenses via motion and screening. Bridges is suited to exploit these advantages with his cutting, finishing, and off-ball activity.

While the majority of his offense is derived off the ball, Bridges touts a bit of on-ball potential, too. Envision him operating the occasional ball-screen action, creating from a hand-off or leveraging his elevated release point over small defenders to fashion some pull-up shooting equity. Through nearly two seasons, he’s registered 91 off-the-dribble shots in the half-court, placing him in the 62nd (2019-20) and 57th (2018-19) percentiles. The efficiency is largely trivial, though. More salient are the developmental reps he receives to secure these scenarios as part of his skill package if/when the Suns aim to employ them down the line. Soon enough, this type of stuff is likely going to be in his arsenal, completing the transition from flashes to repertoire and implementing greater variance into Phoenix’s possession-by-possession approach.

Still, it’s doubtful Bridges ever functions on the ball with regularity. He needs the three-point ball to re-emerge full-time, especially above the break, which remains in flux. But the first chapter of salvaging his jumper is eliminating the array of hiccups that plagued his form and he’s close to accomplishing that goal. As he further distances himself from those hitches and becomes increasingly comfortable as a shooter again, the efficiency will return. Then, the 3-and-D moniker will be more fitting, though it fails to reference his cutting, finishing, and modicum of pull-up shooting.

At that point, Bridges is going to carry significant value because his defensive impact is already mirrored by a select amount of wings around the league. Disposed to accept wide-ranging star assignments, he’s hounding on the ball and remains disciplined, astute, and oriented toward havoc off the ball. Every franchise requires complementary pillars to fortify their bedrocks. Phoenix houses its offensive engine, Booker, and is banking on Ayton prolonging his defensive growth to anchor the interior. Bridges is an apt supporting cast member. He finds avenues to offensive merit, despite intermittent touches and an on-the-mend jumper, and has been a genuine difference-maker defensively since his October 2018 debut.

A 23-year-old averaging 10.9 points per 36 minutes for his career isn’t traditionally thought to warrant excitement about their long-term peak. This is an exception. Mikal Bridges is good. Spindly. Seventy-eight inches tall, 85 inches across from finger tip to finger tip, 209 pounds heavy. Soon, he’ll be all of this, only “good” won’t suffice at that point. Bridges will become remarkably good at what he does, cementing himself as a crucial piece to the Suns’ puzzle going forward.

Unless you’re a die-hard Star Wars fan, or a child who was very badly scarred in the late 70s after catching it on TV, you probably never heard of the infamous “Star Wars Holiday Special” that was so bad everyone involved hates talking about with a white-hot vengeance. Well, good news, kind of: Disney+ is bringing it back, but this time with a Lego twist and four decades worth of Star Wars content to pull from. Although, sadly, no Bea Arthur. (RIP.)

Airing November 17, “The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special” will focus on Rey, Finn, Rose, Poe, and Chewie in an all-new holiday-themed adventure set after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Via Variety:

The 45-minute special will follow Rey as her further investigation of the Force launches her and BB-8 across the history of the Skywalker Saga — as Finn, Poe, Rose, and Chewbacca prepare for the “Star Wars” holiday Life Day on Chewie’s home planet of Kashyyyk.

A rep for Lucasfilm tells Variety that a few “Star Wars” actors will reprise their roles for the special, but it’s still unclear whether Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, or Kelly Marie Tran are returning.

Here’s where things get really nerdy. “Life Day” is the event being celebrated in the original “Star Wars Holiday Special” that only aired once on CBS and was so terrible that George Lucas has done almost everything in his power to keep it from ever seeing the light of day again. Time hasn’t healed that wound. Shortly after selling Star Wars to Disney, Lucas was asked about the infamous special, and well, this is what he said, according to Salon: “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.”

However, on an interesting note, the holiday special marked the first appearance of Boba Fett, who showed up in an animated short before making his live-action debut in The Empire Strikes Back. During the short, Boba Fett uses a two-pronged rifle, which became a direct inspiration for The Mandalorian. In an episode of the behind-the-scenes series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, Lucas actually visited the set during production on the first season, and showrunner Jon Favreau jokingly asked him if he recognized the rifle. Lucas’ response? He rolled his eyes.

The hate is still strong with this one.

(Via Variety)

The NBA has been in the Disney bubble for more than a month now, which means players are pretty well settled into their new environment and have done whatever they can to make themselves as comfortable as possible.

The summer camp vibes of the videos coming out of the bubble on social media of guys having swimming races in the pool, fishing, golfing, and all of the other activities have been pretty incredible. Still, while players make the most of the situation, it’s still difficult for everyone to be away from their families for such an extended period of time, which is why the upcoming entry of families into the bubble has many quite excited.

For now, though, they’ll still have to get through another couple weeks of NBA summer camp and that means a lot of team bonding and finding ways to pass the time together. Lakers veteran forward Jared Dudley spoke with Kyle Goon of the OC Register recently in a delightful interview and dished on how the Lakers are handling the bubble, including a breakdown of the various “vibes” one can find in different Laker players hotel rooms.

“Dion’s got a great vibe to his room, different hookah. Bron has OCD, where it’s super clean and very nice and spacious. Kuz has the night cap of the stars and all that. It depends on what kind of vibe you’re going for. I like AD’s and Bron’s rooms, because they got the candles. I had my wife send me some candles. I got my room smelling good now.”

All of this is extremely on brand, from Waiters room being the team hookah lounge to Kuzma being the after hours party to LeBron having the insanely clean room that’s always got candles going. It’s terrific insight from Dudley, who also laid out some of the extravagant purchases he’s seen from players to make their rooms feel like home, including mattresses and LeBron buying a whole wine fridge for his room.

I also can’t stop imagining LeBron and AD going full dril and spending a ludicrous amount on candles each week.

Latif Nasser is well aware that a global pandemic makes a weird time to drop his new Netflix series Connected — a show in which he takes several connecting flights per episode and attempts to illustrate how we’re all inextricably linked to one another. But while Connected feels tonally discordant with the panic and angst of COVID, there’s a strange comfort in being reminded that even though the call to socially distance has changed our way of life, our connections to one another and our planet endure.

Over the course of six episodes, Nasser — the acclaimed Radiolab researcher, podcaster, and science historian — guides us through single-topic episodes that cover everything from nukes to poop. Using humor and wit to tease out larger topics, the true draw of Connected is how it opens up rabbit holes and then invites viewers to dive ever deeper. Something changes in you when you learn how the secrets to a healthy future lay in the poop of the past, or just how much good has come out of the invention of the nuclear bomb. Each episode is informative, funny, and makes a worthy watch for anyone who wants to get absolutely tripped out on science.

We spoke with Nasser over the phone the day after Connected‘s Netflix premiere.

***

Radiolab sits pretty comfortably in the audio medium, what advantages do you have entering a visual medium for Connected and what are you having the most fun with personally?

It’s a totally bizarre jump from radio to TV, there are so many parts of the documentary making toolkit that I know and I use all the time, and there are so many other parts for the visuals that I was just so dumb about. It’s been this great learning experience.

Hopefully, there are some tricks and narrative moves we use all the time on Radiolab that I’ve been able to sort of smuggle into tv.

It was the most fun to be able to play with the graphics team that I worked with. They are just so inspired, people who are touched with a gift. To commission them like “Okay, what I need is a graphic that is like the Beijing National Stadium and the Hoover Dam but smooshed together, because that’s the amount of dust that goes into the Amazon —“ or “I need a spherical theater that represents weather forecasting that’s going on in a supercomputer but its actually an orchestra” I would have these very very specific requests for them and they would come back with these dazzling beautiful gems, just cranking them out. I was so lucky to have them.

It’s one thing to explain something complicated on the radio where you don’t have a visual component, but to be able to use visuals and have a team of people that are excited and inspired and churning out these gorgeous graphics, makes the show worth watching for their graphics alone!

In addition to being a historian of science, I’ve read that you’re also a theater kid. How does that interest in theater influence the way in which you tell stories?

That’s what I studied as an undergrad and I still think that so many of those techniques and tools from playwriting have taught me that everything has to have a beginning, middle, and end. There has to be an inciting incident, there need to be obstacles, and tension, we need to have a main character, that character needs to go on a journey. I still do all of that stuff, obviously, I’m not playwriting science — in that I fact check everything — but the techniques, the dramatic structure, and dramaturgy of it.

I approach it like this: whether you’re telling true stories or whether you’re telling fictional stories, people take them the same way, they want the same things, they crave that plot and character development. Using those dramatic techniques is sort of a natural fit in the documentary world, I feel.

How do you decide which topics to explore from episode to episode? With names like “Surveillance,” “Dust,” “Poop,” it feels like an episode can be about anything and everything, but you still managed to filter it down into a tight six.

I think that’s part of the fun of TV, there are an infinite amount of options here, which is alluring and paralyzing. A few of the things I thought about when trying to get it down to the tight six, is that I wanted a nice spread. “Poop” was sort of a natural thing, that’s just a thing that I’m always interested in and will always seek out stories about. Benford’s Law was a thing that kept coming up while I was researching other stuff then it almost became like a dare, “Could you really make a 45-minute episode about a mathematical observation, it feels like there is no way to do that.” Okay yeah, we’re going to do that!

I wanted a climate change-y episode to think about, so “Clouds” kind of covers that and felt like a satisfying way to touch on that. Overall, I wanted a really nice spread to feel like we were touching all kinds of different science, sort of just to try out. It feels like a new car, you want to test out the premise of the show, you want to road test it, does it work with this kind of thing? Can I use it to talk about surveillance which is a different thing than dust?

It’s a really fun premise, such a liberating premise, almost too liberating. But it’s guided by my own excitement and curiosity and I think it led me to very different and very strange places.

That’s kind of the charm of the show, each topic is a rabbit hole that pulls you in. Let’s take “Poop” for example, I was hesitant to watch that episode, but once you learn one thing it kind of compounds into another in a fascinating way. What things have you discovered that completely blew your mind in a way you didn’t expect?

The dust story, to get a little bit personal. It was supposed to be about dust but what it ended up being was an episode about life and death and it became weirdly personal. While this was shooting I lost a friend of mine, and what was supposed to be about dust, then ended up being this meditation on life and death that was truly shocking. It’s supposed to be over here and dead and just sitting here, but its not. It moves and it fertilizes and it pollinates and it does some bad and scary stuff too.

But just the idea that things that are dead have these afterlives that are going on all around us. It was emotionally shocking for me to tell this story at a time when I had lost my friend and I was very sad about it. Revisiting this story over and over, to have to shoot it and talk to people about it and edit it, it was sort of a weird but cathartic experience.

Do you think technology and advancement will always be a double-edged sword? I think about the episode on surveillance. The way Tinder had 800 pages on Judith was chilling, but that same technology can also lead to a world where pigs and other animals are more ethically farmed, which is an important change. It’s always this give and take.

You know, that’s the story of the history of science. You can’t predict and things end up being way better or way worse than you could’ve ever imagined. That’s everything, that’s all around us. Tupperware was made from gas mask technology in World War 2, everything around us is products of this double-edged sword. We have to marvel at that. What a world we live in where all this is possible, so much is possible for the big and the bad.

First, it opens your eyes, but then it makes you realize you’re so much more responsible for the world around us and the way we use all of these things.

Given the title of the show and this new era of social distancing, how do continue to stay connected while living through this unprecedented time where we have to be disconnected from one another for our own safety?

Yeah, it’s a funny moment right? It feels like an especially strange moment to release a show out in the world that is about those connections, dwelling on those connections. It’s me taking these connected flights all over the world to report these stories, and it’s coming out to this world that’s kind of shut down. My family is in Canada, we’re shut down. We’re all shutdown in our homes, there is this profound irony, but it makes me think, “we think these things are shut down, but we’re kidding ourselves.”

There are these connections, they exist. No matter what we do the world is going to be this connected place, it’s going to surprise us the ways in which it is. For COVID that’s a scary thing because there is a danger there, but I do think that hopefully, the idea of this show is to say “Look, the world isn’t just connected in the way you think it is, it’s connected in all these other ways too”

“Connected” Is Available To Stream Now On Netflix.

Apparently, I’m being paid off by pedophiles.

This payoff is news to me, but it’s what Some Random People on the Internet are saying, so it must be true, right? That’s how this works? What other reason would I have for sharing factual information about the very real issue of child sex trafficking and calling out false stories of Satanic pedophile rings in which famous evil overlords like Tom Hanks, Oprah, and Hillary Clinton torture and sacrifice children to increase their own power? I simply must be “in on it” somehow.

That seems to be more plausible in some people’s minds than the idea that the wild “Pizzagate” child sex ring theory, which has already been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked, could be fabricated by online trolls and perpetuated by politically-motivated players. People believe Pizzagate is real because they’ve been convinced that the entire media industry is in cahoots and because fringe “sources” with no oversight and no accountability—who insist they’re the only ones telling the truth—said so.

Here’s the thing about such conspiracy theories. (Yes, I know. Some of you think the term “conspiracy theory” was coined by the CIA—read this and stay out of my inbox, please.) Some conspiracy theories are goofy, but harmless. The “flat earth” thing, for example, or the idea that we faked the moon landing. Those beliefs are easily disproven and obviously ridiculous, but no one is being hurt by them. We can all laugh, shake our heads, and move on.

But these outrageous child sex trafficking conspiracy theories like those pushed by QAnon are harmful. Child sex trafficking is a very real, very serious, and very lucrative industry that organizations and governments have been battling for a long time. But QAnon isn’t just saying “child sex trafficking is real and important and we need to shed a light on it.” They’re saying “There is a secret, global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who control everything—including politicians, the media, and Hollywood—and who engage in child sex trafficking and ritual sacrifice to harvest adenochrome from children, and Trump is here to save us all from their evil and it’s only a matter of time before they all go down.”

Those are two very different things—the issue of child sex trafficking (which is real) and the idea that Hillary Clinton literally sucking the lifeblood out of children in a pizza parlor basement (which doesn’t even exist). The fact that we’re nearly four years into Trump’s presidency and none of these supposed Satanic pedophiles have actually been arrested—despite Trump supposedly knowing all about their dastardly deeds, according to Q—is more than a little weird. But that isn’t stopping people from believing this stuff.

It’s also not stopping people from hijacking perfectly good hashtags associated with perfectly good organizations and using them to “raise awareness” about this evil. This is why the #SaveTheChildren hashtag is suddenly showing up everywhere. As Kevin Roose wrote in the New York Times:

“The idea, in a nutshell, is to create a groundswell of concern by flooding social media with posts about human trafficking, joining parenting Facebook groups and glomming on to hashtag campaigns like #SaveTheChildren, which began as a legitimate fund-raising campaign for the Save the Children charity. Then followers can shift the conversation to baseless theories about who they believe is doing the trafficking: a cabal of nefarious elites that includes Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and Pope Francis.”

Some unsuspecting people are using this hashtag to talk about child sex trafficking in general, but many posts refer to the evil Hollywood elite and include various QAnon hashtags along with it. And by evil Hollywood elite, they don’t mean the legitimate issue of Jeffrey Epstein and investigations into his sleazy, slimy, sick habits. They mean “The Cabal.”

Some #SaveTheChildren posters are surely unaware that they’ve been sucked into a conspiracy theory web of disinformation, but those of us who have been following the QAnon phenomenon recognize the virtual fingerprints of a QAnon push. Some of it is obvious, like seeing the #WWG1WGA (a QAnon acronym—”Where we go one, we go all”) accompanying many of these posts. But it’s also the fact that #SaveTheChildren was soon changed to #SaveOurChildren. Why? Because QAnon followers got wind that Bill and Melinda Gates financially support the actual Save the Children organization that the hashtag originally was used for. And Bill Gates, of course, is one of those “evil global elites” who, according to QAnon, created the coronavirus on purpose in order to push his vaccine agenda and depopulate the planet.

So yeah. The #SaveTheChildren thing is a big effing mess.

What’s the big deal, though? Isn’t it just important that we raise awareness about child sex trafficking in general? Of course it is. But unfounded conspiracy theories are not only unhelpful to that cause, but actively harmful.

The Polaris Project is an organization that provides social services to victims of sex trafficking, works with law enforcement to perform crisis interventions for possible victims of trafficking, and runs the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline. In a blog post, the organization explained how these unfounded conspiracy theories actually do harm to the child sex trafficking cause.

“A barrage of conspiracy-related reports from people with no direct knowledge of trafficking situations can overwhelm services meant for victims,” the site states, pointing out that the recent Wayfair child sex trafficking conspiracy theory flooded their hotline with more calls than they could handle, with zero real leads to real victims, clogging the line so that real victims couldn’t get through. They also point out that such theories can lead to loss of privacy or safety for victims or innocent bystanders. (Check out the threats and violence the owner of Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Washington D.C. has had to deal with over “Pizzagate.”)

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, “Conspiracies distract from the more disturbing but simple realities of how sex trafficking actually works, and how we can prevent it.” In other words, all this Pizzagate and Wayfair and adenochrome-sucking nonsense actually pulls people away from the reality of child sex trafficking and interferes with the work people could actually be doing to help prevent it. Most children aren’t kidnapped out of the blue to be sold and abused, but are trafficked or abused by people they know. (See this article written by a woman who was trafficked by her father throughout her childhood.) Polaris encourages people to learn more about what trafficking actual is, what it looks like, and how it generally happens, rather than circulating misinformation.

The bottom line: While #SaveTheChildren might seem like a righteous thing to share, we have to recognize that there’s a boatload of misinformation that is being shared along with it, and such misinformation can do more harm than good.

What should we do then to actually fight for children who are wrapped up in sex trafficking? Follow legitimate organizations that have been doing this work for years. Pay attention to what they say, as well as what they don’t. (You won’t find any of them endorsing QAnon conspiracies. If there were truth to them, these are the folks who would be first in line to shed light on it and do something about it.) Here are some to check out:

Polaris Project

Love146

The Exodus Road

ECPAT-USA

Thorn

Operation Underground Railroad

International Justice Mission

You can also learn more about chlid sex trafficking on the United States Department of Justice website.

Child sex trafficking is worthy cause to get behind. Just makes sure you’re getting behind the real issue, supporting real organizations with the expertise to help, and avoiding conspiracy theories that only serve to distract from the real work being done to actuallly #SaveTheChidlren.

BeatKing is a Texas staple. Every college student in Texas since 2009 has twerked and/or has been twerked on to a song by BeatKing. His legacy has mainly stayed true to the South until this year when his song “Then Leave” featuring Queendom Come went viral on TikTok. Now, everyone is hip to the greatness BeatKing Kong delivered all those years to college kids in the South.

In June, I came across a TikTok of a friend, not from the South, dancing to the familiar room-shaking voice of BeatKing. His aggressive tone of delivery was easily noticeable since his raunchy club hits were essentially the soundtrack of my college experience while attending the University of Houston.

“I ain’t trickin’, I’m just dickin’ bitches down / Head down, pop that, pop that, pop that pussy to the ground,” he raps.

It’s Queen’s “Then leave, bitch, then leave / Get that bread, get that head, then leave, peace out,” opening on the song, however, that sets the tone for the would-be club hit.

It was at that moment that I knew something special was happening.

There were thousands of people doing the coordinated dance created by two Texas girls named Tay and Miyah. All that was left to do was to sit back and wait for two of the biggest TikTokers in the world, Charlie D’amelio and Addison Rae, to make a TikTok doing the dance — which didn’t take long.

The trend snowballed from there. By July, so many people were making TikToks to “Then Leave,” including Cardi B and Lizzo, record labels were calling offering him deals. All of this happened in a matter of 90 days. The song was released in April and by June it had millions of videos made to it and he had signed an artist deal with Columbia Records.

Speaking with the Club God himself, BeatKing shared how it all went down and during a pandemic at that. I also caught up with Queen who recalled making the song with BeatKing at his house and making brownies as they went through the process of creating “Then Leave.”

One day I was randomly scrolling through TikTok and I was like, “Whoa, is that BeatKing? What’s going on?” Going into the University of Houston and then leaving Houston to be in LA, I never heard BeatKing. Nobody knows the name but they know the songs, so my eyes lit up.

No, that’d be real frustrating for my fans, man. A lot of fans, they grow up out here and they leave out of town to go to college or go visit other cities and just be like, “Man, play that BeatKing.” They’ll be like, “Who?”

That’s been a big problem my whole career, people knowing my music, but not knowing BeatKing. It don’t happen now. I think the cucumber thing that helped me out a little bit. Once I started doing that, people really start realizing what I look like.

That’s how I knew a special moment was happening and I know the biggest star on TikTok is Charli D’Amelio. Once she does one, you know it’s a wrap.

That’s all my daughter’s waiting on, was her. Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae. When that happened, they just start screaming. I woke up to them screaming.

Addison made more than one, right?

She just put me on her playlist on Spotify of music she’s listening to. It’s going crazy. Lizzo has repeatedly made videos.

What was your daughter’s reaction when they saw Charli and Addison?

My daughters’ reaction to Charli D’Amelio; they found out she did it before I did, and it was just screaming. They couldn’t believe it. Addison Rae; I saw that before they did. I put them on that and they would say, “Oh my god, daddy, you’re really famous.” They always knew I was BeatKing, but I’ve never had a song that’s entered their world like this TikTok shit. All their friends just want to talk to me on FaceTime. They just can’t believe they daddy is a rapper, rapper.

What was your reaction when you saw Lizzo?

It didn’t really hit me when Lizzo did it. It hit me hard when Cardi B did it.

And her video went viral.

The video went viral. There are like 15 million views. That’s more views than most of the videos on her page right now. That meant a lot to me because I’m a Cardi B fan. I’m a big Offset fan. They wasn’t just bobbing their heads, they were saying the lyrics. That mean they bumped this shit.

Where were you when you first saw Cardi B’s video?

I was driving to my DJ’s house. He stay like 15 minutes away from me, so I’m always just chilling at his house and I was listening to him do this mix, and all of a sudden my phone just blew up. It wasn’t nothing but eight minutes into her posting it that my phone blew up. It just let me know how popular she is. She got more followers than Drake. But those are the two major moments for that song to me. Cardi B posting it, Drake posting it.

Drake posted it?

No Drake didn’t post it, Drake DM’d me about it.

What did Drake tell you?

He DM’d me back in April, because that’s when I had dropped it and that’s when the video came out. He DM’d me saying “I just can’t sit here and watch this shit.” He’s like, “My n****, you killed this verse.” I was like, “N****, you Drake. N****, you kill verses. What the fuck?” Drake started following me in October of last year and we’ve met since then. He said I killed my verse, so that let me know that it was going to be a hit.

Damn.

I didn’t think it would lead to going viral and the whole record deal and the whole industry just watching this shit.

I was interested in seeing how far it would go. Like I said, I’m in LA now, so they don’t really “know” BeatKing.

But you know what’s crazy, though, up in LA? The masses don’t know me out there, but the strip clubs do. The strip club culture? They play a lot of BeatKing at Crazy Girls.

I feel like it’s not a strip club if BeatKing’s not playing at some point.

You got to have BeatKing in the strip club, or you don’t have a fucking strip club.

But Cardi B. Like you said, she has more followers than Drake. I thought it was interesting how she commented and told you that whoever it was needs to get their shit together. She let you know how much trouble she went through to make the video.

That meant a lot to me. She really wanted to make that video. She had to play it on a whole other phone. She went through a lot just to make that video. You know what I’m saying? I think that comment put fire under TikTok’s ass, because what happened was the song accidentally got taken down off TikTok for a week and a half.

Whoa.

It was just a technicality. Shit happens. It was gone for a week and a half, and I thought that was going to stop the whole momentum but it didn’t. The song is so popping that people were uploading it to TikTok themselves and making videos to it. Cardi B went out of her way to play the song from another phone. That song not going nowhere. I know at least for the fucking summer into the fall. The remix ain’t even been done yet.

Who’s on the remix?

I don’t know yet. We out there sending out pitches.

Who would be the dream for the remix?

The dream remix would be Megan Thee Stallion and Drake. I could just easily DM Drake, but I don’t want to come off like people who begging him for verses every fucking day because I know people beg Drake for verses. People beg me for versus every day and I’m BeatKing. If you Drake, you got motherfuckers begging you for verses.

I’m begging Drake for an interview, so I feel you.

I just don’t want to be somebody else doing that. Me and him just got cool. I don’t want to be like, “Hey man, and by the way, you want to hop on…?” I figure like, it’ll happen when it happen.

I don’t know how it works behind the scenes, if people know before an artist hops on a remix or if they do it on their own. Like how Justin Bieber hopped on “What’s Poppin.” Did Jack Harlow’s team know that was going to happen or did just Justin Bieber just do it?

It go both ways, man. Sometimes a label gets the remix done for you, and if that’s the case, then you have no idea what’s going on. The way I like to operate is a relationship with the artist. Once you’re cool with the artist then they’re not going to charge you. It’s more of a beneficial, mutual thing, if everybody’s cool with each other and doing it off the strength of that. For this remix, I’m going to real hands-on.

You make your own beats, so did you make this one?

Yes, I did. The main part of it, the turn-up when that verse come on in club, go up, “boom boom boom.” I know how to control the energy and bodies. I knew if I switch the beat up here, it’s going to make the song go up in orbit when that verse start and it worked. That’s the main part on TikTok. I know how to evoke emotion through 808s. If you switch up a beat at a certain spot, people don’t understand why they like the song that much right there.

That’s very interesting. I talk to a lot of producers, but no one’s ever described production in that way.

Beats are the most important part of the song. I’ve never seen somebody get turned up to acapella. It’s the beat that would make you drive your car faster. If the beat is hard off the top, your work already cut in half. I was like, “Well let me just make Queen say some ratchet ass, gold-digging ass shit,” and you put that with a fucking strip club ass beat, and there they go. The formula.

We’re in the middle of a pandemic and there’s a lot of artists that are struggling a little bit right now, but you are flourishing!

That’s just God man. I had the right song at the right time. It’s like the worst time for the human race right now with COVID and Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. It’s just the worst year, I feel, for mankind. But, it’s been the best year of my life. Normally when I drop new songs, I work them in the clubs, and I do the footwork but the clubs were closed this time so I had to do something that I hate to do. I had to make a challenge. I hate challenges, because everybody’s doing them. When I did that sh*t with The Dancer Locker Room — that’s another ratchet ass Instagram page.

Oh, I follow them.

With The Dancer Locker Room, we did a challenge together and found out every stripper in the country follow them. When they did the #ThenLeaveChallenge, every stripper around the country was on there doing it. That was April through May and every stripper had it. It was already embedded in they brain. They already riding around listening to it, doing private hotel party type of shit.

I’d say around June when everybody just started to go back outside that they start clubbing a little bit again. That’s when the TikTok challenges started. I remember right when they hit 662 videos. That’s when my daughters came in my room, was like, “Daddy, your song is getting popular on TikTok. Every time I open my phone, your song is playing.” The next day we hit a thousand videos. I was like, “Damn, so 400 people made videos to this in a day?” The next week it was 5,000. The next day it was 10,000.

Right when it hit 20,000, it started trending on Apple Music for almost three weeks straight. That’s when all the labels start calling.

Me and my manager was having a conference calls with every major label in the industry and they all just kept talking to me about the song. “It’s a dope song. We want to buy the song.” Columbia was the only one talking to me about a career.

What is your label situation?

I am signed to Columbia Records as a artist. That’s where Polo G is. Beyonce. Lil Nas X and a plethora of other successful ass people. I belong there.

Tell me about Queendom Come, she has the main part of the song on TikTok!

That’s my dog. Me and her, we had a hit song in 2012 called “You Ain’t Bout Dat Life.” A lot of people are just now realizing that’s the same girl. She been doing hooks for me. She’s actually a dope rapper and a real lyricist. I first met her like 2010 when I heard her rap and I wanted her to do a song with me and when she did that, it was “You Ain’t Bout Dat Life.” I was like, “Man, yo, this song going to be big. We going to be on the Billboard charts.” She was like, “Man, shut the fuck up. I don’t even know what that is.” We ended up peaking on the urban charts with no deal.

I saw that post of you going to her house and giving her a check.

That was just me paying her back, man. Every time I get a royalty check or anything I’m always going to look out. Columbia signed me, they didn’t sign her.

There wouldn’t be no signing for me if she didn’t hum those parts and if she didn’t say that hook the way I needed her to say it. People are asking her for hooks and she won’t do them. It’s like, “I’m not doing hooks for nobody but BeatKing. I’m not letting out this sound. I’m not finna slut out this brand we got.” It was just me being a real one.

I also want to talk about “right cheek, left cheek,” because I always say the first time I ever heard that saying was in the “Crush” remix with Just Brittany. I feel like that was maybe every girl’s favorite part of the song, now I hear that saying everywhere and more recently with Beyonce’s verse on the “Savage” remix. Have you noticed that?

Me and my manager, we talk about this a lot, making sure that I don’t come off that way. But a lot of stuff that’s going on today, that’s working today, I did do it first. I don’t go around just talking like that. Nobody give a fuck. The stuff I was doing 10 years ago, you can see it in somebody like Megan today. She’s 25, so that means she was listening to me when she was 15. You can see it.

You are embedded in Texas culture.

You’re going to hear me like nine times a night in Middle America and the South; I’ve been on. That’s why this ain’t really too much different, it’s just everybody else is finding out. I’ve been doing shows every weekend since 2010. They think I’m a new artist.

Did you see the TikTok of the girl where she goes through your songs since 2010?

Yep. That shit was dope. I wish I could find her Instagram. Her TikTok meant the most to me. That was dope. She had all the hits on there. Like, that was a real supporter.

I love that. The original girls who made the dance, was that random?

That was hella random. That was hella a random. Those two girls, two little 16-year-olds from Dallas, and they just showed me the power that TikTok has. I think it’s very popular because you can’t manipulate it.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s very organic. They was just some fans who liked the song. I remember they tagged me in that video on Instagram and I didn’t think nothing of it. I just liked their video to just be nice.

When my daughter started showing me the videos increasing on TikTok, and I saw it was their video that kicked it off, I was like, wait, they just put that on Instagram. On Instagram it ain’t got no clout but on TikTok, they turned up like a motherfucker. Those two girls started everything. Now they got like 60,000 followers, just off that dance. You can’t tell a TikToker to TikTok.

You cannot.

They have to see it from their friends. They’re not going to the person with a million followers to copy them. They’re doing stuff in their community unless it’s Charli D’Amelio or Addison Rae. These kids just making dances around they friends and it just picked up from there. The videos is just tripling and tripling and tripling every hour.

At least two million.

It’s at two million right now. It probably would have fucking been at three million if the song ain’t got taken down before we could have. It just got back up there so now we back up and running.

I’m happy to hear that.

I’m happy as fuck to hear that too. Like, if Cardi B wouldn’t have done a video to my song, what would’ve been done? She held it down while it was down.

Shout out to Cardi B, she’s a real one.

Shout out to Cardi.

That’s why I had to mention it because that’s some real shit. You don’t see people doing that kind of stuff in the music industry.

I know a lot of females that have danced with Cardi back in the day and they all tell me she a real ass bitch. They all say “Man, she real as hell. She’s one of the realest ones.” Her hopping in my comments, it didn’t catch me off guard.

Tell me about your artist Jade, too! I know she has a song with Jucee Froot that’s fire.

Jade from Beaumont. I really need y’all on her. Her project is probably going to be coming out in the next two months. We just shot a lot of videos and she has a real hard song with Erica Banks that’s going to drop.

From the suburbs of Chicago to the University of Tennessee to the Los Angeles Sparks, WNBA legend Candace Parker has broken down preconceived notions about female athletes and Black women. In a new ad spot for adidas, Parker looks back on her life so far, her struggles, and her legacy.

Parker discusses growing up and being underestimated as an athlete as one of the only Black girls who would venture to the hardwood in her hometown of Naperville, Illinois. She explains how eye-opening it was to play in China and Russia as a pro hooper, and seeing the way people all across the world treat Black women. And she details why she hopes that her career — though hardly finished — can serve as inspiration for young Black girls like her daughter Lailaa.

“I believe the meaning of life is legacy,” Parker says. “So for me, it’s definitely my kid. It’s definitely just an energy. You either leave something, or you take something, and I’d rather take something.

“I hope there are certain things that come to mind when people think of me when I’m no longer here or no longer a part of the game of basketball or no longer on Earth. … If you don’t have a legacy, what are you doing?”

One of the most exciting series of the first round of the NBA playoffs will be without a key character to start, as Rockets guard Russell Westbrook will reportedly miss at least the first couple games team’s series against his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle.

Westbrook has already been ruled out of Houston’s closing seeding-round game on Friday with a strained quad.

Now, Feigen reports, “Though the Rockets could only put a timetable on when they will next evaluate Russell Westbrook’s strained quadriceps muscle, the expectation is that he will be out for the first few games of next week’s playoff series and possibly longer, a person with knowledge of the team’s thinking said on Thursday.”

An MRI revealed that Westbrook’s injury was more serious than anticipated, after Westbrook himself said he would be ready to play Friday and practice over the weekend in anticipation of the first game of the series next week. The Rockets are set to play a surprising Thunder team in the first round after locking in the fourth seed.

That series is full of subplots, not the least of which is Westbrook facing the team for which he played during the first 12 years of his career. Not only will that story be absent if Westbrook is forced to miss extended time, but a series that was already likely to be quite competitive takes on even more of a focus in the Western Conference if the Rockets are without their No. 2 option.

With folks more desperate for streaming content than ever, Amazon just scored a huge get when it comes to October horror. The eight-film anthology “Welcome to the Blumhouse” will launch on Prime Video with four new movies hitting the platform in the lead-up to Halloween, and the rest coming down the line in 2021.

The four films include The Lie, Black Box, Evil Eye, and Nocturne, which will release as double features throughout the month of October. According to Amazon, “each film presents a distinctive vision and unique perspective on common themes centered around family and love as redemptive or destructive forces.” Via Deadline:

“We’re beyond excited that the visions of these talented filmmakers will finally be seen by genre fans around the world, especially during this time when people are seeking to escape and be entertained. And we love the innovative idea of programming like the classic drive-in or repertory theater experience,” said Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold, co-presidents Blumhouse Television. “Amazon have been incredible partners, linking arms and supporting the creative visions throughout the process of making these films.”

Here are the summaries for the upcoming horror slate along with each film’s Amazon Prime release date.

The Lie (10/6)

“When their teenaged daughter confesses to impulsively killing her best friend, two desperate parents attempt to cover up the horrific crime, leading them into a complicated web of lies and deception.”

Black Box (10/6)

“After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an agonizing experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.”

Evil Eye (10/13)

“A seemingly perfect romance turns into a nightmare when a mother becomes convinced her daughter’s new boyfriend has a dark connection to her own past.”

Nocturne (10/13)

“Inside the halls of an elite arts academy, a timid music student begins to outshine her more accomplished and outgoing twin sister when she discovers a mysterious notebook belonging to a recently deceased classmate.”

You can see the official “Welcome to the Blumhouse” poster below:

(Via Deadline)

With all the talk of the 2020 XXL Freshman Class circulating, a member of 2019’s class has returned to drop off a new video from her delayed debut album. “iPhone,” the latest single from Rico Nasty arrives with a video produced by her “Ringtone” collaborators 100 Gecs. The video uses surreal imagery to comment on the way technology has consumed our lives as Rico spits boastful lyrics about a crush who gets her to change her ways.

“iPhone” joins “Lightning” and “Popstar” as the latest teaser to the delayed Nightmare Vacation, which was originally set to be released in summer 2020 but was delayed by the onset of a global pandemic. The delay turned out to be a mixed blessing, as it allowed Rico more time to polish the project and ensure it lives up to the potential posited by prominent co-signers like Cardi B, who told Rico she was “up next” to become one of rap’s biggest stars.

However, her delayed album isn’t the only thing keeping her name buzzing during lockdown. She recently collaborated with IDK on his PG County posse cut “495,” contributed to the Scooby-Doo reboot film’s “My Little Alien,” and linked up with Kali Uchis for the bilingual hit, “Aquí Yo Mando.”

Watch Rico Nasty’s ‘iPhone’ video above

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