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We’re a little more than a month into the 2022-23 NBA season. In that time, there is not a single player who has made me double take, grin, guffaw, and throw my hands up in the air as often as Orlando big/wing/guard Bol Bol.

At 7’2 with a legitimate level of fluidity that few that size possess, Bol puts together mesmerizing stretches of play that flirt with being novel and unthinkable. Contextualizing what his play style means is quite difficult, because again, you’re just not accustomed to this from someone the same height as Roy Hibbert.

Injuries have always inhibited Bol. His one-and-done season at Oregon was limited to nine games before he hurt his foot, while his NBA career has featured nagging injuries throughout. This season, he hasn’t missed a game and has started the last 17 for the Magic.

That he’s even on the court is a win. Prior to this season, particularly after the Detroit voided trade debacle, it seemed like Bol needed a number of things to go right for him to stick around in the league. And here we are!

Bol has played more minutes this season than he did the last three combined. He’s spent substantially more time at the four than the five, something that hadn’t been the case since his rookie year in Denver, and it’s paid dividends. Orlando has by far the funkiest lineup constructions in basketball — 6’10 Franz Wagner will play the point at times, and five players 6’6 or taller sharing the court is surprisingly common for the Magic, largely due to early injuries to the entire guard rotation.

He’s averaging just under two blocks per game, sending jumpers back, cleaning up in weak-side help, and throwing in the occasional chase down. Playing the four on defense has been a huge factor in his success. To put it bluntly, Bol is a poor defender at the moment. He needs more reps and playing time to continue improving his defensive feel. He has slow feet, he struggles in drop, and while he has decent instincts to contest, he has poor positioning.

By virtue of playing in supersized lineups that usually don’t ask him to be the primary rim protector, Bol has been able to camp out on weaker offensive players and be masked as a defender. Even if he is drawn into pick-and-roll situations or isolation, he’s so long that he makes things tough for ball-handlers, and there’s a lot of length behind him if you drive past him, too. This Magic team buzzes with effective weirdness.

Playing at the four has opened up room for Bol to thrive offensively, too, and he’s done that in an unexpected way. Rather than simplifying and reducing Bol’s role, the Magic have leaned into what he can do. We’re hitting a point with the sample size that it’s harder and harder to pick it apart, which makes it all the more fun to watch.

Per Cleaning the Glass, 53 percent of his makes are assisted, which is in the 94th percentile among bigs. Only half of his shots at the rim (93rd percentile) and 72 percent of his threes (97th percentile) are assisted. His True Shooting comes in at 66.6 percent, almost 10 percent above league average. He’s shooting 84 percent at the rim, 52 percent from 4-14 feet, and 47 percent on above the break threes.

Orlando’s offense is equal opportunity, allowing multiple creators to test the waters that are dominated by pin-downs off the corners, although spacing concerns can make things a bit clunky. Bol commands multiple chances as a secondary ball-handler and creator, running actions after screening, after popping, and after running off of screens himself. The Magic love getting him elbow opportunities in short pick-and-rolls or as a handoff man who can dive on a fake.

Shortening the distance between him and the basket makes him that much harder to guard. Look how much ground he covers just attacking off the catch in the corner.

A spin, two and a half strides, and Bol is throwing down. Try to hide your worst or smallest defender on him, and his touch is good enough that he can punish them

He’s had some issues with defenders that can be physical and stop his drives. Players with the sort of length that walls him off can stifle him and causes turnovers or poor shots given that he’s pretty strictly a straight line driver. He’s shooting just 2-for-11 from the corners this year, which may seem odd, but it’s due in part to a slow release and shot prep. The Magic know that, though, and rarely station him in the corners. If he is there, he’s such a sizable pump-and-go threat that he usually leans into that

Digs and stunts at the nail can still catch him off-guard. His passing is mostly an afterthought, a grenade to throw away when it can’t go up towards the rim, but he’s put together some solid reps of late tossing to baseline cutters or the corner when they’re in his sight line.

Frankly, I don’t know what is going to happen with Bol when the Magic begin their ascent in the Eastern Conference, and their young talent goes from “promising youngsters” to “playoff-caliber performers.” But for now, it’s impossible to watch the way Bol saunters through defenders in transition and not feel like there’s something there.

The ball control is just good enough. He doesn’t hesitate, he just soars.

The most important thing is that Bol isn’t just a novelty, a gigantic dude with a guard’s skill set who dominated at the lower levels but couldn’t translate that into anything against adults. He’s quickly become one of the more entertaining and effective play finishers in the NBA. There’s legitimate upside as a roving wing who causes mismatches when he attacks off the catch and can score in isolation in the right scenarios. He is capable of attacking with efficient, absurd firepower that can do immense damage when focused and honed.

Is he a long-term NBA starter? I’m not sure, and would go as far as to say that I lean towards probably not. But 22 games ago, I didn’t think he’d play substantial minutes in the NBA again. As the Magic continue to figure out what their future looks like, it sure seems like Bol will continue to do whatever it takes to make sure he is part of it.

Houston police say they have made an arrest in the case of the murder of Migos rapper Takeoff, according to Associated Press and The Daily Beast. The arrest came a month after Takeoff’s death in the early hours of November 1. Police arrested 33-year-old Patrick Xavier Clark, charging him with murder for allegedly shooting the Atlanta rapper twice during what appeared to be an argument about basketball between Takeoff’s bandmate Quavo and another man.

Another man, Migos member Quavo’s assistant Joshua “Wash” Washington, was also injured in the shooting along with one other person, but both were expected to recover. The only arrest made prior to Clark’s was of 22-year-old Cameron Isiah Joshua (aka Lil Cam) for illegally carrying a firearm. However, police were quick to assert that Joshua was not the shooter, and it appeared that leads had dried up. Police also said that they didn’t believe that Takeoff was specifically targeted, although they have yet to announce a motive for the shooting.

Takeoff’s bandmates (and family members) Quavo and Offset both offered separate tributes to their fallen partner-in-rhyme, while Takeoff’s first posthumous verse came out today via Metro Boomin’s newly released album, Heroes & Villains. Takeoff was laid to rest in a service at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, with performances by Chloe Bailey, Justin Bieber, and more.

Pablo Alborán released his most adventurous album yet, La Cuarta Hoja, today (December 2). The Spanish pop star also dropped the music video for his collaboration “Ave De Paso” featuring Ana Mena.

La Cuarta Hoja is Alborán’s first new album in two years. Across the 11-track LP, he experiments with multiple genres. He dabbled in regional Mexican music alongside singer Carin León in “Viaje A Ningún Lado.” Argentine star María Becerra‘s reggaeton flow collided with flamenco in Alborán’s song “Amigos.” He basked in the opportunity to try new things with his music.

“The productions and songs in your music mean so much more when you have less prejudices against other genres, other songs, and other artists,” Alborán told Uproxx. “The music is more honest and real. This is an album that’s very positive, happy, and honest.”

Another daring collaboration on La Cuarta Hoja is “Ave De Paso.” Alborán teamed up with another Spanish pop star, Mena. He explores elements of electronic and dance music in the rustic track. The song captures the spirit of the album with Alborán and Mena singing about the freedom of spreading your wings and flying high. Alborán also released an alluring video for the song featuring Mena.

Alborán’s La Cuarta Hoja album includes the love song “4U,” a collaboration with alternative artist Leo Rizzi. Spanish singers Aitana and Álvaro de Luna feature on the rollicking track “Llueve Sobre Mojado.”

La Cuarta Hoja is out now via Warner Music Latin. Listen to it here.

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

Good Morning America hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are apparently taking the tail-end of this whirlwind week in stride. The couple went from relatively unknown news anchors to the center of affair rumors that kicked off a tabloid frenzy. After having intimate photos published in the Daily Mail, the two have been fighting competing narratives on when exactly their previous marriages ended and their new relationship began. On top of that, Robach and Holmes been showing up to work as top brass at ABC were quick to capitalize on the “ratings gold.”

While the two haven’t outright acknowledged the mounting affair rumors or their now public romance, they did take a not-so-subtle jab at the growing fiasco during their end of the week broadcast. Holmes got the ball rolling by joking that “It’s too bad it’s Friday,” which sparked some awkwardly witty banter with Robach.

Via Page Six:

When Robach, 49, asked if it really was too bad, he poked fun at the “great week” he was having.

“I just want this one to keep going and going and going,” the former CNN anchor, 45, added with a smile. “Just enjoying it.”

However, when Holmes advised Robach to “take it all in,” she replied, “Speak for yourself.”

While their former spouses apparently feel differently, Holmes and Robach are reportedly glad that their relationship is now public even if it’s not how they planned it.

“They’re not ashamed. They’re two consenting adults, who ended up loving each other,” a source told Page Six. “It’s not how they wanted [news of their relationship] to come out, but it’s also kind of a relief.”

(Via Page Six)

It’s probably fair to say that Bones And All, from Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, isn’t the most groundbreaking concept in the world. It plays a lot, in fact, like the radio-friendly edit of Raw, Julia DuCournau’s 2016 coming-of-age tale about cannibalism and burgeoning sexuality at veterinary college. Yet freshness of concept probably wasn’t foremost on Guadagnino’s mind when he set out to direct David Kajganich’s adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’s 2015 novel. (Sidenote: do you think Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name star, Armie Hammer, ever tried to talk him out of doing a cannibal story?)

Guadagnino doesn’t take teen cannibalism further (trying to be more “out there” than Julia DuCournau seems ill-advised at best) so much as let it breathe. He finds the beauty in it, the power of two outsiders pitted against the world. He’s a sensualist, who seems more concerned with how characters in extraordinary situations might act than with their larger implications, or how they might be shoehorned into an allegory (an almost unheard-of quality among pitch-driven, concept-first American filmmakers these days). To put it in less film critic-y terms, Guadagnino is excellent at shooting gorgeous films about pretty people doing weird things… and that’s nice.

Taylor Russell plays Maren, a late high schooler who in the first scene gets invited to a sleepover — a big deal for her, being the new girl at school. Things are going well (and vaguely sapphicly?) until Maren tries bite off a girl’s finger and eat it. She runs out of the house and back to her own house, where her father (played by the always great André Holland) sees the blood on her shirt, immediately understands what has happened, and gets them all packed up and ready to split town in minutes. Clearly not his first flesh-eating rodeo.

Maren is a bit remote as a protagonist, but with purpose. She’s a young girl on the cusp of adulthood trying to figure out who she is, which is difficult under any circumstances, but especially so when your insatiable craving for flesh forces you into an itinerant lifestyle under a series of aliases. Cannibalism as a vehicle for feelings of adolescent alienation, the search for identity, womanhood, and burgeoning sexuality has, as I said, already been covered in Raw (yes, I know Bones And All the book came out first, please don’t leave me this comment six times). But Bones And All also adds a pleasing dose of lore. Maren isn’t the only cannibal in the world, see. There are others out there, and they can recognize each other by scent. Sorta like highlanders but also sorta like dogs (it feels right).

Maren learns all this from the first fellow meat-eater she meets, Sully, played by Mark Rylance, who seems to be as knowledgeable about the cannibal lifestyle as he is eccentric. Rylance’s performance is absolutely electric, a freak mix of conviviality, vague sexual menace, and hobo self-talk, like if “Ol’ Gil” from The Simpsons was a carnie who might eat you. Simply wonderful.

Maren desperately needs companionship, a support system, parental figures, but those qualities are almost impossible to extricate from people (read: men) who might want to rob, fuck, or kill her. She has essentially the same reservations about Lee, played by Timothée Chalamet, a sort of fashion goth take on Shia LaBeouf in American Honey, but in this case her natural tripidation is undercut by sexual desire. Is it really goodness she’s sensing in this guy or is she just swayed by a jawline that could cut glass? In the end, all we have is our intuition, and companionship is always a leap of faith.

Bones And All largely consists of Maren’s cross-country journey of self-discovery, complete with many gorgeous misty early morning landscapes, with state postal codes superimposed on the screen every time she enters a new one (interspersed with the occasional gory feeding). Road movies have a natural inertia, and Guadagnino is wise to just sort of let us marinate in the moments. In 2022, movies incorporating the fantastic or exploring the supernatural almost always try to skip past the people to drive home the themes. It’s always about “where is this going and what does it mean??” to the point that it can flatten the humanity it purports to celebrate.

Guadagnino’s movies are a healthy antidote to this kind of anti-impressionism. In the end, occasional gore notwithstanding, Bones And All plays less like Raw than it does a cannibal-infused American Honey if it were directed by an Italian guy who was obsessed with Timothée Chalamet. It’s an imagery-first kind of film, and it delivers quite a few that are probably going to stick with me for a while.

‘Bones And All’ is playing now in theaters everywhere. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.

Tom Rinaldi is a television presenter and sideline reporter who dedicates his life to making us tear up while telling the stories of athletes. The veteran broadcaster left ESPN a few years back and took his talents to Fox, which is in a pretty busy stretch of a few weeks. Every fall, Fox has college football and NFL games on its calendar, and Rinaldi working both of those is nothing new.

This year, Fox is also the home of the World Cup in the United States. Rinaldi has been part of Fox’s coverage of the event from Qatar, but this hasn’t been the only football he’s covered in the last few days. In a recent interview with Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, Rinaldi laid out his schedule from Nov. 21-29, which included stops in Doha, New Jersey, Texas, Ohio, and Kansas City for work.

“I don’t want to sound like a shill, but I’m so incredibly grateful,” Rinaldi told The Athletic about his workload. “Who wouldn’t want to have the opportunity to be at these games and these events? To be in ‘The Shoe’ for Ohio State-Michigan, and then to be in the stadium for the USA against Iran? To be part of the Thanksgiving tradition in the NFL, and then to be on the sideline to see Sean McVay trying somehow, someway to solve Patrick Mahomes? It’s an awesome set of opportunities and a 10-day stretch I’m not ever going to forget.”

Tom Rinaldi if you are reading this I will Venmo you $5 for a cup of coffee, because it is obvious to me that you deserve one.

David Harbour is, by now, a firmly established actor who has found a place in some massive modern entertainment franchises. The Stranger Things star landed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe recently and has seen his career blossom in the streaming era. But one of the early breaks in his career involved a “cloak-and-dagger” meeting he earned because Madonna thought he was hot.

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the Violent Night star told a story about how he ended up getting cast in “W.E,” a 2011 historical drama about the affair between King Edward VIII and an American, Wallis Simpson. And though Harbour admitted that “it was not a terrific movie” the story behind it all is pretty spectacular.

The conversation happens around the two-minute mark of his appearance. Harbour described it as “crazy” but heard about a job opportunity that slowly revealed itself to be based… well, mostly on how hot he was.

“It was a real cloak-and-dagger type of thing,” he said. “It started out, I got a call from a casting director that I knew very well saying ‘They’re putting together a top-secret movie read-through. But you just have to show up at the St. Regis and go in this room and all will be revealed.”

Despite it being “weird” and “creepy,” Harbour acquiesced.

“And I said ‘Why do they want me?’” Harbour asked, though the casting director didn’t want to tell him at first. Eventually, though, the truth came out.

“Well, the director really liked you in this movie Revolutionary Road. You have, like, a sex scene in it,” Harbour recalled the casting director saying. “They thought you were really sexy.”

Harbour joked about some very famous male directors possibly fitting the bill of this anonymous figure. But eventually, he showed up to the read and “in walks Madonna, who is directing this movie.”

Which, of course, brought Harbour back to the reason he was there in the first place.

“The first thing that flooded over me before she went over was ‘wow, Madonna thinks I’m sexy,’” Harbour said. “I was really excited about that.”

Though he described it as a “truly harrowing, exciting experience” the movie did turn out to be a flop. But the story behind it certainly is not. The segment also includes a very funny exchange about the meaning of Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” music video, which Harbour interpreted VERY differently from Jimmy Kimmel. You can watch the full interview above.

The tributes continue to pour in for late Low drummer and vocalist Mimi Parker, who died in early November, this time in the form of a musical cover: Indie act Storefront Church (Lukas Frank) enlisted the help of Phoebe Bridgers to re-imagine Low’s 1994 single “Words.”

Bridgers is well familiar with covers, having already covered The Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine,” The Carpenters’ “Goodbye To Love,” and The 1975’s “Milk,” but this rendition means a lot more to the guitarist. Parker’s passing was a huge blow to the rock music community, and with the cover, Frank and Bridgers paid their respect.

Co-produced by Waylon Rector, the pair beautifully elevates the track in a way never heard before. An all-star team of musicians (Rector on guitar, Frank on drums, Spoon’s Alex Fischel on piano, Daniel Rhine on bass, and Cynthia Tolson leading the strings) worked to keep the initial mythical allure of the song while bringing it up to the current times.

Frank took to Instagram to share what the cover meant to them, writing, “Low’s music has been incredibly useful to me; it’s like an antidote to anxiety, with Mimi’s voice at the heart of it — relieving, cathartic and honest. This cover features Phoebe, who I’ve known since we were little kids. I couldn’t be more grateful for her contribution and support, both now and over the years.”

Listen to the full cover above.

Though charges of racism are nothing new for Britain’s Royal Family, one bigoted old bag just took it to a whole new level. On Thursday night, Trevor Noah shared the latest controversy facing Buckingham Palace, which involves an 83-year old woman and an exchange that likely has Queen Elizabeth II turning over in her grave.

On Tuesday, Lady Susan Hussey — Prince William’s octogenarian godmother, and the late Queen’s onetime lady-in-waiting — was at Buckingham Palace for a reception at which Ngozi Fulani, an advocate for victims of violence and domestic abuse and the founder of the nonprofit Sistah Space, was a VIP guest. But it was Fulani who ended up being victimized when Hussey began questioning her about her nationality and apparently refused to accept the London-born guest’s response that she was British. Fulani later posted a full recap of the exchange to Twitter, which began with the problematic “Where are you from?,” and devolved into more pointed questions like, “No, but what nationality are you?” (eek!) and “No, but where do you really come from? Where do your people come from?” (NO!!!)

Noah offered some belated advice to Hussey, who has since resigned her “position” (whatever that means), when he explained that “there is only one socially acceptable way to find out someone’s heritage: you swab their DNA while they’re asleep.”

Clearly, Hussey must have skipped the first day of “Avoidable Racism 101,” because Noah said that the first thing they teach you is:

“Never say the word ‘from.’ That’s it. A lot of racism includes the word ‘from,’ so just avoid it altogether. ‘Where are you really from?’ ‘Go back to where you came from.’ ‘You see this clip from Tucker Carlson?’

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 6:15 mark.

Matty Healy has been doing a lot on The 1975’s At Their Very Best tour in promotion of their brilliant new LP Being Funny In A Foreign Language — from eating raw meat on his knees to making out with fans. He’s also been running into fans a bit before shows and having interesting interactions, the most recent one being about his height, which he is very passionate about.

In the video, he vehemently (and all in good fun) claims he’s around 5’11″or 6’0″ tall. While standing next to the fan and comparing his height to hers, he says, “How can I be f*cking 5’5″, 5’6″? I am sick to f*cking death of this. I am a big boy!”

This is also not the first time Healy has addressed the perception that he’s short. When asked in a 2018 interview if there are any misconceptions about him, he answered, “There must be, right? Because I’m a person, and I only give a way into what I’m like in interviews or records — which are a context. Everyone in the band is 6’4″ and I’m 5’10”, so everyone thinks that I’m 5’5″. That’s one of them [laughs].”

This is just one of many Healy clips to go viral as of late. A fan-favorite one includes him yelling at security in Auto-Tune during a song, “Someone’s fallen down over there,” he says. “Go and f*cking sort them out. Stop standing there like a bunch of d*ckheads.” There’s also an amazing roster of guests who’ve joined the band on the stage to perform, including Phoebe Bridgers for “Milk” and Jack Antonoff to play some Bleachers deep-cuts.