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For the first time in NBA history, the other 29 teams are going into the regular season trying to knock the Denver Nuggets off of their perch atop the league. After never quite being able to get over the hump during Nikola Jokic’s tenure in the Mile High City, Denver finally made it to the NBA Finals and did not disappoint, knocking off the Miami Heat in five games to earn the right to lift the Larry O’Brien trophy.

With a few exceptions, the Nuggets opted to largely run it back this year, and how can anyone blame them? The team has the best starting five in the league, they’re battle tested, they have the best home-court advantage in the league, and they seem to relish the big occasion. While the team has one or two little concerns, it’s an exciting time to be a fan of the Denver Nuggets.

Biggest Question: How Do They Replace Bruce Brown And Jeff Green?

The tricky thing about the Nuggets is that we know so much about them. The team is running it back with the starting five that got them a ring — Jamal Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokic — while head coach Michael Malone is still in town. That starting group gives them a floor that, barring injury, no other team can match.

If there is a problem, it revolves around the fact that two key pieces of the puzzle from last year are no longer here. After one season with the team, Brown cashed in on his brilliant 2022-23 campaign by signing a lucrative, 2-year deal with the Indiana Pacers. Green was ultra reliable and steady for the team during his two years in Denver, he’s now a member of the Houston Rockets. Their contributions to what the Nuggets accomplished last season can’t really be overstated, as they were effective cogs in the machine on offense who were willing to take on difficult assignments on defense.

The only major questions with the starting group revolve around whether Murray can finally get over the hump and become an All-Star and how much more room Porter has to grow. Caldwell-Pope and Gordon are as defined in their roles as they can be, while Jokic is the best basketball player on the planet. But there are real questions about replacing Brown and Green, which leads pretty nicely into…

X-Factor: Literally Any Young Guy Stepping Up

Again, the Nuggets are a little difficult to talk about here because they are such a known commodity, but we’ll take the biggest question and use it as the launching off point here. The one real question facing the Nuggets has to do with their depth, namely the way that they’re going to replace the minutes they got from Brown and Green. They have a few veterans coming off of their bench in Reggie Jackson and Justin Holiday, and while there is value in the fact that you can usually pencil in what you can expect from them on a given night, they’re probably not helping to raise the team’s ceiling.

If that’s going to happen, it’ll come by way of one of their youngsters blossoming in a larger role. The obvious candidate here is Christian Braun, who funny enough tied for the second-most games played last year and continued to earn Malone’s trust as the year went on — he played in every NBA Finals game and famously exploded for 15 points in 19 minutes during Denver’s Game 3 win. Maybe Zeke Nnaji or Peyton Watson’s familiarity with the team (Nnaji is entering his fourth year, Watson is entering his second) can be parlayed into more playing time. Can they get literally anything out of their NBA Draft class, all of whom are old for being first-year players — Julian Strawther is 21 and turns 22 in April, Hunter Tyson just turned 23, Jalen Pickett turns 24 right before the start of the regular season.

The good news is that, barring multiple catastrophic injuries, Denver doesn’t need any of these guys to magically morph into an impact starter or anything like that. Their starting unit is so good that they have the luxury of time. But building up depth is important, and the defending champions have 82 games to do that before the playoffs roll around.

Following the disbandment of rap collective Brockhampton last year, founding member Kevin Abstract is teasing a new era of his own. Today (October 11), the rapper has shared a new short film called “Gum.”

In the clip, several people are seen in a diner, hanging out, making out, and simply vibing out. A guest is then swallowed up by a giant wad of gum. The screen then fades to black, with the title card “Blanket” flashing.

After dropping “Gum,” Abstract took to social media to reveal the cover art for his upcoming album, Blanket, which is set to arrive next month.

According to a press release, Bleach was produced over the course of three months with Abstract’s longtime collaborator and producer Romil Hemnani, along with multi-instrumentalist Jonah Abraham. During the process, Abstract also collaborated with “young screenwriters and veteran songwriters alike” to evoke a cohesive, cinematic feel throughout the project.

“I wanted to make, like, a Sunny Day Real Estate, Nirvana, Modest Mouse type of record,” said Abstract in a statement. “But I wanted it to hit like a rap album.”

You can see “Gum” above and the Blanket artwork below.

Blanket is out 11/3 via Video Store/RCA. Find more information here.

Drake recently dropped his new album, For All The Dogs, and it appears to be doing quite well — according to early chart predictions. Hits Daily Double has projected that it has moved between 400,000 to 450,000 album units in its first week. This would likely mark the fourth biggest debut this year.

Still, it is enough for Drake to secure another likely No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Fans will also be excited to hear that the Canadian rapper could take over both charts, as his song “First Person Shooter” featuring J. Cole is rumored to be taking the top spot on the next Hot 100.

This Hot 100 No. 1 placement is important, as it would earn Drake his thirteenth hit on the chart. He would then be tied with Michael Jackson for the most No. 1’s by a male solo artist. (Drake will likely surpass Jackson’s record during his lifetime.)

However, during a recent episode of SiriusXM’s Table For One, Drake might be taking a little bit to do so — as he mentioned wanting to take a break due to stomach problems. “I’ll probably not going to make music for a little bit, I’mma be real with you,” he said. “I need to focus on my health, first and foremost.”

At least for now, fans can enjoy For All The Dogs.

What would you do if you thought you saw Bigfoot? Would you take out your phone and upload the footage to the internet, or would you think “eh, that’s probably a guy in a dirty monkey costume” and watch the Bigfoot scenes from A Goofy Movie instead? If you’re me, it’s the latter. But if you’re like Shannon Parker and another passenger (or Rob Lowe) on Colorado’s Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Train, you’re clicking the record button.

“On Sunday, October 8, 2023, [her husband] Stetson Tyler and I took the Narrow Gauge train ride from Durango to Silverton,” Parker wrote on Facebook. “After leaving Silverton and heading back to Durango, I asked Stetson to help me look for elk in the mountains. As we are passing by the mountains, Stetson sees something moving and then says I think it’s Bigfoot.”

She continued:

“Brandon, the guy sitting next to Stetson on the train grabs his phone and starts recording. Meanwhile I am trying to get a photo on my camera. Below is the video Brandon got and the photos I took. Y’all, out of the hundreds of people on the train, three or four of us actually saw, as Stetson says in the video , the ever elusive creature Bigfoot! I don’t know about y’all but We Believe!!”

Judge for yourself below.

Do I think that’s the “real” Bigfoot? No. But as far as Facebook conspiracy theories go, Bigfoot is one of the better ones. At least until we found out he’s not vaccinated.

(Via Facebook)

This Friday, October 13, Travis Scott’s latest Nike collaboration, the Air Jordan 1 Low Golf in “Neutral Olive,” will be available to buy after months of hype. Whether you’re a fan of Travis Scott’s prior Nike sneakers or just want some stylish and coveted new shoes for the links, if you’re looking for more info on how to buy the shoes — which will set you back about $170 — you’ve come to the right place.

How To Buy Travis Scott’s Air Jordan 1 Low Golf “Neutral Olive” Sneakers

Unlike most general releases, Travis Scott’s Nikes are released in limited quantities to specialty retailers — and these golf shoes are no exception. While prior drops have gone directly to skate shops, these will land at golf stores such as Trendy Golf. One store is even reportedly going to extreme lengths to combat resellers, requiring prospective purchasers to hit a 200-yard drive before even being considered for its raffle to buy one of the 72 pairs it’ll have for sale.

But for most of us, the most direct route will be online retailers such as BSTN, Sneakers N Stuff, and Offspring, along with the dreaded SNKRS app, which has prompted plenty of woes with previous Travis Scott releases. Don’t worry if you don’t get a hit, though: Travis’ Mac Attacks are right around the corner for tennis enthusiasts and hardcore collectors alike.

Since 2012, Aftershock Festival has been rocking Sacramento, California with some of the best and brightest from the worlds of metal, hard rock, and punk. What began as a humble event with a few handfuls of bands — that first year saw the likes of Deftones, Stone Temple Pilots, and Bush — has now expanded to a massive, multi-day, many-staged behemoth that sees rock fans traveling in from around the world.

This year’s festival was no different, with headliners including Tool, Korn, Guns n’ Roses, and Avenged Sevenfold. And, like many of the big rock festivals, the talent only gets more exciting and impressive as you go down the lineup, with highlights including Turnstile, Rancid, Incubus, Limp Bizkit, Queens Of The Stone Age, White Reaper, AFI, Godsmack, Deafheaven, and many more.

For those who were unable to make it to the festival, Uproxx’s Paul L. Carter was on site to capture the below photos from the festival, showcasing some of the biggest rock bands in the world at their best. And don’t worry, Aftershock has already announced their 2024 return, taking place on October 10-13, 2024. Check out the images below.

Korn

Incubus

Limp Bizkit

Tool

311

Turnstile

Megadeth

Queens Of The Stone Age

Guns n’ Roses

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

The View did not waste time tackling Jada Pinkett Smith‘s bombshell revelation that she and Will Smith have been secretly separated since 2016. In a new interview with PEOPLE to promote her memoir, Worthy, Jada came clean about the state of the couple’s marriage.

“We’re still figuring it out,” Jada said after confirming that she and Smith were already separated for six years when the infamous Oscars slap occurred. “We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”

Of course, this revelation raises all kinds of questions about Will Smith’s assaulting Chris Rock and his perplexing decision to be part of a Red Table Talk interview about Jada’s affair with August Alina considering the couple were already living separate lives. However, don’t ask The View co-host Ana Navarro about it. She’s already sick of it.

“Why do I know so much about these people’s marriage?” Navarro said via Entertainment Weekly. “I kind of feel like I know more about their marriage than I know about my own damn marriage. I don’t need to know all of this. You know what? I just want to watch reruns of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Bad Boys. Just leave this out of my head.”

Blunt as always, Navarro called out Jada for using the separation reveal to boost book sales.

“Listen, I think she’s having a relationship with her bank account, because every time she needs to increase the ratings of the Red Table, every time she needs to sell books, she drops these bombshells,” Navarro said. “I find it unseemly. Be careful of anybody who pretends to have a perfect marriage.”

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Composer Bobby Krlic has shared a new single, “N/Y,” under his solo alias, The Haxan Cloak. Over the years, Krlic has worked as a producer alongside the likes of Björk, Father John Misty, Goldfrapp, and more, and has composed scores for films like Midsommar and shows like the Netflix original, Beef. However, he hasn’t put out music of his own since 2013.

On Krlic’s latest bit of solo music — a song called “N/Y” — he delivers a terrifying instrumental track, accompanied by a visual containing terrifying imagery, matching the horror of the movies and television he’s worked on over the years.

“‘N/Y’ is a feeling I’ve had for a really long time,” he said in a statement. “It was made with the intention of being something that I could play live only, and was just this burst of intensity that could re-contextualize anywhere I would play it in. I kept working on it and it became something that I wanted to hear regardless of the context. I made the video in the same way. Making charcoal drawings and oil paintings, then fusing these together with self-shot video of myself in my studio. It feels immediate and without compromise. It was made quickly, in a moment, with complete intention. I really hope it changes the space you’re in.”

You can see the video for “N/Y” above.

Every NBA team is interesting in its own way as the regular season get up and running. Having said that, you can make the case that there are few teams more interesting than the Minnesota Timberwolves as we get ready to begin the 2023-24 campaign. They made waves last offseason by swinging for the fences, but instead of hitting a home run, Minnesota hit a soft ground ball to shortstop and got thrown out.

Now, they enter a year where the hope is they’ll be able to take that next step forward, with the trio of Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, and Karl-Anthony Towns living up to the promise the front office imagined when the called up the Utah Jazz and expressed their interest in the French big man. But the question remains: Can the second year of their big three go much better? Hey, on that note…

Biggest Question: Can The Second Year Of Their Big Three Go Much Better?

The Timberwolves took one of the NBA’s more ambitious swings in recent memory last offseason, as the team moved a ton of stuff to bring Gobert to Minneapolis. It was a pretty fascinating statement of intent, as the team clearly believed that a frontcourt duo of Towns and Gobert could work in harmony as Edwards ascends to become the face of the franchise. The result of that bet: 42 wins, 40 losses, needing a win in the Play-In Tournament to earn a postseason berth, where they lost in five games to the eventual champion Denver Nuggets in the first round.

Obviously there are some pretty easily identifiable reasons as to why that was the case, namely the fact that Towns only played in 29 games due to injury. Their offense wasn’t as dynamic as expected. They swapped out their point guard after 54 games, as they were part of a three-team deal with the Jazz and the Los Angeles Lakers to replace D’Angelo Russell with Mike Conley. Instead of having the sort of elite defense that teams built around Gobert tend to have, Minnesota was 10th in defensive rating. The regular season ended with Gobert getting suspended for punching Kyle Anderson during a timeout.

There were bright spots — Edwards is very good, Jaden McDaniels is an impressive player — and the team was by no means a catastrophe. Still, Minnesota didn’t go all-in on the Edwards/Gobert/Towns trio just to win one playoff game and spend the entire regular season flirting with a .500 record. Whether or not they can take a step forward as a trio is the big question for this season and beyond, and if they can’t, there are going to have to be some really difficult conversations about what they can accomplish. But the good news is that those three guys are all extremely talented, they have a well-respected head coach in Chris Finch, and their roster is filled with guys who know how to play alongside that trio.

X-Factor: A Full Season Of Mike Conley

Another step forward for McDaniels can go here, too — man, how excited must the Timberwolves be that they didn’t have to give him up in the Gobert trade? — but we’ll show some love to an important veteran presence. No one is going to argue that Conley, who just turned 36, will play at an All-Star level or anything like that. Conley’s best days are obviously behind him, but he is still quite good at understanding the tempo of a game, getting his guys organized, and making sure his teammates get the ball in the spots that they like. He’s happy to defer to others, and has a good sense of when he has to pick his spots.

Conley started every game after the Timberwolves acquired him in a trade at the deadline last year. While this 4-man group only appears in seven games and 103 minutes together, lineups with Conley and the team’s three stars had a net rating of 9.2, per NBA.com. While they struggled against the Nuggets in the playoffs, Conley is the kind of conductor who can really help those three players gel over the course of an 82-game season. If he can do all the stuff that has made him a great pro for years, he’ll provide a really great 1-2 punch in the backcourt alongside Edwards.

Bad Bunny is gearing up for the surprise release of his next album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana, which is set to drop this Friday, October 13. Because of the date approaching, fans had been wondering if he would do anything special tied to it. According to Hola!, he will be hosting an exclusive listening party tomorrow, October 12 starting at 9:30 p.m. from Puerto Rico’s Coliseo de Puerto Rico José M. Agrelot.

The venue holds 18,000 people, making it an event not to miss. According to their Instagram post, the listening party is only for those 18 and older. They have also limited sales to only four tickets per person.

However, in just two hours after the tickets went on sale, they sold out.

Bad Bunny had previously teased the album with his “Un Preview” single back in September, but fans were still caught by surprise with the official announcement. He shared a trailer on Instagram, which you can check out below. The performer also previously hinted that it’s fifteen tracks, by sharing a mock tracklist where each song was titled “Fuego.”

Outside of the listening party and a few promotional hints, the exact details of the album are still pretty under wraps.

Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana is out 10/13 via Rimas. Find more information here.