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The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – It’s a good show!

Are you watching the third season of Harley Quinn on HBO Max right now? I hope you are. I hope you are mostly because it is almost unreasonably good and fun but also because I’ve told everyone to watch it a bunch of times and I like when people listen to me. It’s an absolute blast, an interesting twist on stories we’ve heard and seen 100 times, with Commissioner Gordon as a grizzled mess who plays with the Bat Signal to have someone to talk to about his marriage and Bane as a hapless sadsack who has spent most of this season fretting about his missing pasta maker. I adore it.

But anyway, this gets us to the point I’m making, which is that some truly incredible things have played out in the last few weeks on this show and someone needs to document it somewhere. And that someone is me. Other people have documented it, too. But I’m doing it here. There is so much going on that we are just going to brush right past the thing where the Joker is now a suburban dad who has moved in with a nurse named Bethany and her adorable children and recently ran for mayor of Gotham on a platform somewhere slightly to the left of Bernie Sanders. Look at this freaking guy.

But more importantly, all of this is going on, too:

• Harley and Poison Ivy, who are a couple now, are planning to terraform Gotham, just blanketing it in plant life
• Ivy’s talking plant friend Frank (voiced by JB Smoove, which is great) has both developed powers to bring dead plant life back into lush green existence and has been kidnapped by Bruce Wayne
• Bruce Wayne is trying to genetically alter Frank to bring back the dead parents he lost as a child in Crime Alley after that play
• The formula goes wrong as they come back as disgusting hellzombies

So there’s that. But there’s also this: Harley and Ivy kidnap Bruce and use various mind control powers — it’s a thing, watch the show — to get into his head to locate Frank, and while they’re in there, they see Bruce has a loop of his parent’s murder playing over and over in his head, non-stop, forever, which is not helped by the fact that — in the show — James Gunn is making a movie about it all. Vulture has a cool breakdown of the episode but here’s the gist.

Harley Quinn thrives in the “fucked up” zone, and in breaking this season the writers slowly started to develop their Batman into a main antagonist. It started with the idea that a Thomas Wayne biopic — directed in the world of Gotham by actual The Suicide Squad director James Gunn — would be in production, and spiraled from there. The question for the writers then became this: What would it be like to be Bruce Wayne and see trailers for a movie about your parents being shot? How much would that mess you up?

But you’re probably reading this and thinking, like, “Hey, if Harley Quinn is banging around inside Bruce Wayne’s brain, wouldn’t she stumble across other important information in there? Like, for example, the thing where he is secretly Batman?” Well, ladies and gentlemen…

Incredible, all of it, up to and including the thing where her tour guide through Bruce’s brain is the child version of Bruce who saw his parents die and tries to do the little gravelly Batman voice when he delivers that line. I gasped a little when it happened. And that wasn’t even the biggest reveal from the episode. I’ll let you discover that on your own. Just a wonderful piece of television.

I am glad this show just got picked up for a fourth season. Very few things out there are this weird and delightful and happy to revel in being both. Please get in there if you haven’t already. You deserve this. Listen to me.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – Keanu rules

The internet is loaded with stories about Keanu Reeves being cool as hell. You can find them anywhere. Google “Keanu Reeves stories” right now — not, like, right now, please finish reading my precious words — and click around. You can find dozens of them, I bet. You probably don’t even need to work that hard. There might even be one in the comments under this post by the time you get around to reading it. He’s a famously good dude, is my point. The ice cream cone story is my favorite. Definitely look that one up if you don’t know it. Later, though. We have another Keanu story to get to first.

This one goes something like this: A couple is at a hotel for their wedding reception. The husband goes to the hotel bar to get a drink beforehand, because this is what husbands do on their wedding days. He bumps into Keanu Reeves down there, because sometimes Keanu Reeves is at the bar in your hotel. He shoots his shot, as his wife told Newsweek and anyone else who would listen, one assumes.

“My husband saw him in the bar area and told him he’d just got married and invited Keanu to come over to say hello and have a drink with us if he wanted to.

“He was very friendly and said he would later on. We didn’t know if he would or not but it was cool that my husband had spoken to him!”

Well, guess what…

Guess if Keanu showed up at the wedding reception.

Guess if he posed for pictures and schmoozed with the guests and pretty much just charmed everyone for an hour or so.

Imagine how funny it would be if I set it all up like this and the answer was “no, he blew them off and went to bed.”

It’s not, but still.

Of course he showed up.

“It was all very exciting and I went to say hi and introduce myself, and I offered him a drink but he declined that and said he’d just had a long flight so wouldn’t stay long but he was so kind and friendly and congratulated us on our wedding,” she said. “He was kind enough to do some pictures and our wedding photographer was able to capture some too! Then he took the time to speak to some of our guests and have more photos done!”

There are a few takeaways here, which we will cover quickly via bullet points:

• Keanu Reeves is the coolest
• Always poke your head into the bar when you are staying at a hotel just in case Keanu Reeves or another cool celebrity is in there chilling
• Weddings are a blast
• I am a lot of fun at weddings
• I get out on the dance floor in my wheelchair and start spinning around and giving rides to children and bridesmaids and reasonably spry nanas
• You should invite me to your wedding
• And Keanu
• Invite us both
• It will be fun

This was a good chat about weddings. Also, coincidentally, today is Keanu’s 58th birthday. Look how happy Patti Smith is to be with Keanu. The man is a delight. Happy birthday, Keanu!

ITEM NUMBER THREE – Important sequel news

There are a ton of sequels worth watching for right now. There’s the tenth Fast & Furious movie, Fast X, which is kind of a wild collection of words if you think about them a little. There’s the second Knives Out movie, which sounds awesome even if it does not feature a single Muppet, as far as we know. There’s the fourth John Wick movie, which we can ask Keanu about when you invite both of us to your wedding. It’s all very exciting.

But most exciting of all, maybe, if you’re a sicko like me and a bunch of other goofs on the internet, is this: AMC is making a second movie theater commercial with Nicole Kidman. You know the one. The one that plays before every movie at an AMC theater. The one where she says “somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this,” like a maniac. The one I posted at the top of this very section.

Vanity Fair broke the news along with an interview with the writer of the ad, Hollywood screenwriter Billy Ray. Here’s a taste.

Luckily, there’s now another one in the works. “I’m very, very excited about it,” Ray says. When asked what the new ad might look like, though, the screenwriter was relatively tight-lipped. “All I can tell you about it is we are not dumb enough to fly in the face of the one we’ve already done and try to top it,” he says. “So it’s a very, very different approach that is a little bit of a wink to the one we’ve already done.”

Here’s the thing, and I need to stress here that I am being serious: This is thrilling to me. I am legitimately excited about this. I can’t wait to see where they go with this. Part of me hopes it picks up right where the last one left off and continues her story. Part of me hopes it picks up just after the movie she’s watching in the first one ends and she gushes about how great it all was. A big part of me hopes it’s just like her at the grocery store and she doesn’t even mention the magic of the cinema, like all we’re doing is extending the universe of the character she’s playing here, who I choose to believe is not “Nicole Kidman” and is instead a cinema-loving woman named Denise Roulette who attends movies alone because her husband died in a freak pizza-related accident. No, YOU have an overactive imagination.

Leave me alone.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Oh look, a movie for me

This is the trailer for the upcoming Weird Al biopic. “Biopic” might be a strong word. It is to an autobiographical movie what a Weird Al song is to the original, which is to say a little deranged and maybe better. It looks kind of like if Walk Hard starred Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al, which I mean very much as a compliment. Here’s the official synopsis.

Daniel Radcliffe is “Weird” Al Yankovic in the unexaggerated true story about the greatest musician of our time. From a conventional upbringing where playing the accordion was a sin, Al rebelled and made his dream of changing the words to world-renowned songs come true. An instant success and sex symbol, Al lives an excessive lifestyle and pursues an infamous romance that nearly destroys him. With Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, and an A-list cast of thousands their agents won’t let us reveal.

Good. Great. I love it. I love everything about it. I love that it looks nutty as hell. I love that Daniel Radcliffe banked all his Harry Potter money and is out here doing the weirdest and coolest stuff he can think of, kind of like how Jon Hamm finished Mad Men and started doing goofball guest appearances on all your favorite comedies. I love that Evan Rachel Wood is channeling Madonna in a way I find deeply intriguing. Like I said, all of it.

We are watching this movie. All of us.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – I would have paid $100 to see Regis Philbin at McDonald’s

What we have here is a clip from The Dan Lebatard Show in which Michael Schur — creator of Parks and Recreation and The Good Place, co-founder of FireJoeMorgan, and, most importantly for our purposes here, husband of JJ Philbin, the daughter of Regis — tells a story about longtime morning show host and television icon Regis Philbin trying and failing to use a “free McDonalds for life” card. It’s a good story, as one might expect from a story that begins with the premise of “Regis Philbin had a card that guaranteed him free Mcdonald’s food for life,” which is apparently a thing that exists.

This was written up this week at The Big Lead. Here’s the relevant chunk of text.

“The cashier would just stare at it confused, because it was like ‘what is this, why is Regis Philbin in this random McDonald’s demanding free $3 hamburgers?’” Schur said. “They would go ‘I’ve never seen this before, I need to call someone and it’d be this confusing thing.”

So confusing, in fact, that Philbin would inevitably pay out of his own pocket despite the unusual deal and the somewhat official-looking card.

Two things are true here and both are worth noting:

• I would have given almost anything to be in a Mcdonald’s when Regis Philbin tried to get like a quarter pounder with a Free McDonald’s For Life card and sent every employee in the store into a state of panic over this situation that was almost assuredly not covered during orientation
• Now that I know these exist, I must have one, even though I have not eaten at a Mcdonald’s in… I’m going to say three years?

Give it to me. I’ve been very good.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Erik:

I flew to Europe two weeks ago. I had an aisle seat and was looking at what the man one row ahead of me to my right was watching, as you do. With 30 minutes left in the flight (i looked at the time to the destination just to make sure) he put on the movie Michael. I immediately had so many questions. Is Michael a movie he loves and has seen many times so he wanted something comforting, as to not have to be worried about missing the ending? Had he never seen Michael? If so, why put it on then? If so, did he go to his hotel and immediately watch the rest of it?

So. Many. Questions.

Erik hit the most pressing questions here, but one I would like to add is… what in the world?! Michael! Of all the movies in the history of film to put on. I kind of wish Erik had sent this email to me right after he landed so I could have asked him to go on a little recon mission for me. I need to know more about this guy. I need to know more about the other choices he makes in his life. Like, what kind of car does he drive? What does he order for dinner at a restaurant? Is he married? What is his wife like? I know I said I only had one more question and then I immediately asked three more, but still. This is one of those things that makes everything else a little mystery.

I need to stop so this doesn’t consume me and ruin my whole Labor Day weekend. But I will be thinking about it every time I see the movie Michael on my cable guide. Or John Travolta. Or an airplane. What a maniac. To be clear, the maniac I’m talking about is the dude who started watching Michael in the last 30 minutes of a flight, not about myself. I can see how there could be confusion there. But there’s not. I’m normal.

I’m normal.

I swear.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To California!

Sometimes in Solano County, Calif., where more than half the land is used for agriculture, residents can smell the earthy odor of tomatoes as big-rig trucks carry the product south to the Bay Area. Those trucks typically hold about 50,000 pounds of tomatoes in a hulking pile of red. A few are occasionally lost over the side thanks to sharp turns or bumps on the road.

You probably know where this is headed. But still. I appreciate that we have a Chekhov’s Tomatoes situation brewing here.

But about 5 a.m. on Monday, more than 150,000 tomatoes were scattered across the heavily trafficked Interstate 80 in Vacaville, Calif., after a big rig that had been transporting them collided with a vehicle and swerved, striking another vehicle before driving into the center median, Officer Jason Tyhurst of the California Highway Patrol said.

TOMATO SPILL

TOMATOES EVERYWHERE

RED SAUCE AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

“Those tomato skins, man,” Officer Tyhurst said. “Once they hit the asphalt, it’s like walking on ice.”

One car became stuck on the slippery roadway and then was struck by another vehicle, Officer Tyhurst said. The tomatoes quickly caused a chain reaction of crashes, he added: Another car struck the two vehicles, and then another was sideswiped by yet another swerving car.

I understand that this is serious and that crashing your car can be a health and financial disaster, especially if either or both are already issues for you, but with that stipulated, I very much want to see cars slipping and sliding around a tomato-covered highway. You should be able to buy tickets to it. Make it part of a demolition derby. Everyone would love it.

But hey, at least we can be sure this was the only large-scale sauce-based food spill that happened this w-…

To Memphis!

The Alfredo sauce was everywhere.

Oh my god.

Mile 11 of Interstate 55, in Memphis, was sauced up. Concerned local newscasters, summoning all of their training, dispatched their reports on Tuesday after a tractor-trailer carrying jars of Alfredo sauce struck a median shortly before 5 p.m.

Yes.

YES.

The white sauce on the road did not continue to smell great as the TV people waited along the highway to go live at 10:30 p.m. It took about an hour before it smelled “really bad,” she said.

“Unfortunately, this is Memphis, and we had some pretty intense sun beating down on that Alfredo sauce, and also humidity,” she said. “It was just not a great recipe for a highway full of Alfredo sauce.”

Three things here:

• I know this was jars of sauce in boxes in a truck but it is much funnier to picture like an oil tanker filled with loose Alfredo sauce sloshing around, so let’s just go ahead and pretend that’s what we had here, just as a treat for ourselves
• I got a little nauseous just now thinking about the smell of Alfredo sauce on a Memphis highway in August
• Things often happen in threes, so if you are driving a truck filled with, like, pesto sauce this week, please be careful

In conclusion, please picture every single character on The Sopranos reacting to these news stories.

Tom Cruise, who is known for soaring to new heights, is now breaking new records! Last week, Top Gun: Maverick arrived on digital platforms after singlehandedly bringing back movie theaters from the dead and sitting comfortably in theaters and breaking records all summer. Now, the high-flying sequel has become the bestselling week-one digital release of all time in the U.S.

The sequel racked up over $1 billion at the box office after being released on Memorial Day weekend after several year-long COVID delays. Cruise fought for the movie to get a theater release, though he probably would have been fine if it went straight to streaming, clearly. The movie became the top-selling item on Amazon in the U.S. the day it was released.

Cruise has been openly ecstatic about the response to the movie, both from old and new fans, but in particular, men who went to the theater for a healthy dose of nostalgia and action. When asked about how he feels being dubbed the Dad Cinema Savior, Cruise says he is proud to resume that role. “Being a dad with three kids, I take that as a compliment,” Cruise told The New York Times. “I made a movie about firefighters, which is also known to bring grown men to tears. I’ll wear that badge with pride. To see young kids have a great experience, but also to have an experience with their dad and their grandpa or grandma, that, to me, is the most gratifying thing.”

Next, Cruise will likely smash even more records when the upcoming Mission Impossible installment ultimately brings motorcycle chases back into the mainstream.

(Via Collider)

If you stand with Ukraine and happen to be in Russia, you might want to steer clear of any large windows. Or medium-sized windows. Or, really, any windows that might be large enough to accommodate the bulk of your body, as window-falling has become a bizarrely common cause of death within circles of individuals with political ties to Vladimir Putin. As The Daily Beast reports, Ravil Maganov—Lukoil’s chairman of the board in Russia—is the latest victim. On Thursday, the 67-year old seems to somehow have fatally fallen from the sixth floor of a hospital in Moscow, like something you might only see in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

While Interfax, an independent Russian news agency, reported the details of Maganov’s death, writing that he “fell out the window of his room at [the hospital] this morning. He died of his injuries,” a press release issued by his employer left out the suspicious circumstances and instead explained:

“We are deeply saddened to inform you that Ravil Maganov … passed away after a serious illness. Ravil Ulfatovich made an invaluable contribution not only to the development of the company, but to the entire Russian oil and gas industry.”

Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil company, took the rare step of very publicly condemning the war in Ukraine, which has many people wondering if Maganov’s death might not be so accidental after all — and well they should be. As Newsweek reports, Maganov is one of more than half-a-dozen prominent figures with ties to Russia to die under bizarre circumstances this year alone.

In May, Maganov’s colleague Alexander Subbotin, another part of Lukoil’s top brass, was found dead in a shaman’s home where so-called “voodoo rituals” were being performed. Just two months later, in July, Latvian-American banker Dan Rapoport—who had been openly critical of Putin—died after falling from an apartment building in Washington, DC. Rapoport’s death came approximately five years after his former business partner Sergei Tkachenko fell to his own death from a Moscow apartment building.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, three Russian doctors fell out of hospital windows over a two-week period, though only two of them — both of whom had been railing against the challenging working conditions they were being faced to endure — died. The third doctor, who was being blamed for giving COVID to her colleagues, was seriously injured but survived.

In April, financier Bill Browder, who conducted lots of work in Russia, warned Newsweek that “any time you see a wealthy Russian dying in suspicious circumstances,” you should assume the worst.

Point taken.

(Via The Daily Beast)

HBO is pulling no punches as Amazon releases Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power as timed to compete with House Of The Dragon. The Game Of Thrones prequel’s now heading into weekend three of Sunday night event TV, and Amazon’s now releasing their new episodes on Fridays, so there’s not any overlap with literal timing, but there’s no subtlety regarding the competitive nature of these two epic fantasy series. They’re also both based upon source material by “R.R.” authors (George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien), which means nothing, but I just wanted to point that out.

The point here is that HBO doesn’t want anyone to forget about Dem Dragons, and although the viewership has already reached record-busting heights for HotD, there’s still more people in this world who haven’t tuned into the Targaryen-based drama yet. Nor have they seen the “Dracarys” callback or the ickier aspects of “The Rogue Prince” episode. And with reviews declaring that The Rings Of Power is worth the price tag spent by Amazon, HBO has a chess move.

The entire debut House Of The Dragon episode is available on YouTube.

It’s Westeros vs. Middle-earth, y’all. Plan your time accordingly, but really, how lucky are we to have these two series to concurrently swallow on a weekly basis? Enjoy both of them.

For weeks, Donovan Mitchell seemed destined to join the New York Knicks. And then, with a singular 13-word tweet Thursday afternoon, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski announced that destiny will not turn into reality.

In the deal, the Cleveland Cavaliers are sending Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton, Ochai Agbaji, three unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027, 2029), and two pick swaps (2026 and 2028) to the Utah Jazz in exchange for Mitchell.

Cleveland had previously been linked to Mitchell as an interested suitor, but New York’s combination of future picks, enticing young players, and resolute pursuit suggested a Knicks-or-bust result. Now, though, Mitchell is a member of the Cavaliers, one of the surprise teams of 2021-22 who ultimately fell short of the playoffs, in part due to some untimely injuries throughout the year.

Regardless of their disappointing play-in exit, the Cavaliers — shepherded by a trio of young stars in 21-year-old Evan Mobley, 22-year-old Darius Garland, and 24-year-old Jarrett Allen — touted one of the NBA’s brightest futures approaching 2022-23. Adding the 25-year-old Mitchell, a three-time All-Star and among the league’s 20 or so best players, only enhances that sentiment.

A season ago, Cleveland boasted a top-five defense and bottom-10 offense. When Sexton and Ricky Rubio went down before the turn of the calendar, the team didn’t holster the requisite personnel to field a viable offense and instead leaned into its elite defense, anchored by Allen and Mobley.

In fact, following Rubio’s injury on Dec. 28, the Cavaliers generated the NBA’s seventh-worst offensive rating. Defenses routinely trapped Garland, rotated properly on the back-side, and extinguished any 4-on-3 fires to stymie possessions. When Garland struggled — rangy length gave him problems — Cleveland desperately yearned for supplementary creation and couldn’t unearth it.

Enter Mitchell, an elite offensive talent and someone who can help remedy these issues. Trapping won’t suffice when he’s alongside Garland, not a chance. Over the past two years, he’s averaged 26-5-4 on 57 percent true shooting. Last season, he made sizable strides as a slasher and pick-and-roll initiator to reach the cusp of All-NBA status. Only a handful of players, let alone guards, are better offensively than him.

Cleveland not features a pair of elite ball-handlers whose approaches do not clash stylistically. Garland and Mitchell are a superbly harmonic backcourt offensively. They’re each masterful at setting up and manipulating screens. According to Synergy, they both finished top-20 in off-the-dribble volume, while placing in the 85th percentile or better in efficiency last season. They’re pick-and-roll savants, too. That’s a dynamite tandem upon which to establish offense.

Garland, in particular, thrives as a shooter, netting over 40 percent of 259 pull-up threes in 2021-22. His slender frame and insufficient vertical pop hinder him individually around the rim, even if he is a virtuoso interior playmaker. Meanwhile, Mitchell is an explosive, demonstrative driver who pairs those gifts with patience and craft — only six players generated more points per game out of drives (10.3) than him a year ago, per NBA.com. Downhill juice and long-range sniping is a snug intersection.

In Utah’s spacing-heavy offense the past few years, Mitchell reliably pierced the defense and sprayed kickout passes from an array of angles and deliveries (live dribble, bending around defenders, midair dimes, etc.). His athletic tools and budding on-ball savvy have morphed him into a stellar exterior passer. Given Garland’s second-nature chemistry with Allen and Mobley inside, that type of diversity in a playmaking portfolio can be integral to high-level offense. Passing is often treated as a broad term, but there are vital nuances to it and this duo checks off many of those nuances.

Among his acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, and weaponized handle, Mitchell is a prolific advantage creator. He’s refined his approach in ball-screens lately, learning to properly snake them, lock defenders onto his back or hip, and leverage a big man’s roll gravity into openings. His manipulation and creativity as a distributor have also expanded.

He’s just really, really good at catalyzing productive possessions in the half-court, a component the Cavaliers dearly missed last season. Over 70 percent of his buckets were unassisted and he averaged 25.9 points on above-average true shooting, while refining and growing the horizons of his facilitating.

One of the reasons Mitchell and Rudy Gobert struggled to maximize their offensive talents was Mitchell’s tendency to miss laydown passes or toss inaccurate lobs. Both Allen and Mobley are excellent, high-volume interior threats, so I’m curious how that element factors into Mitchell’s fit. They’re also more diverse in their finishing and scoring arsenals than Gobert, which could accelerate Mitchell’s acclimation and promote a greater willingness to prioritize such reads rather than precarious finishes.

A significant tweak to Garland’s usage last season was head coach JB Bickerstaff broadening his off-ball deployment, especially alongside Rubio or Rajon Rondo. With Mitchell in the fold, these capabilities should only continue to grow. Behind his shiftiness, balance, and concise release, Garland is an adept off-movement shooter. He ranked in the 74th percentile off screens (1.081 points per possession), according to Synergy. Spain pick-and-rolls featuring Garland as a back-screener and Mitchell commandeering things should be a popular wrinkle.

Expect more Floppy actions, second-side ball-screens, and a whole host of other sets that send him into motion before he receives the ball. His twitchiness, instantaneous processing, and silky touch all shine in these contexts. Mitchell, a premier offensive engine, can help accentuate them.

Similarly, Garland’s presence will alleviate some of Mitchell’s creation burden. Both ranked among the top-20 in time of possession and usage rate last season. The latter may maintain, the former should not. They’re divergently skilled at tilting a defense into rotation and capitalizing upon that shift. Not every high-usage, on-ball player is that. They each are.

Mitchell is ridiculously explosive and often decisive off the catch. Give him a bent defense and he’ll stretch that advantage into a fruitful possession. As Mike Conley Jr. struggled to withhold the same usage as the year prior, Mitchell generally operated on the ball more this past season. But those off-ball opportunities still manifested and he showcased how lethal he can be. Utah’s offense functioned best with lots of movement to enable these reps for Mitchell and while Cleveland doesn’t offer the same personnel, aiming to emulate similar themes would be wonderful.

During Conley’s All-Star 2020-21 campaign, Utah enjoyed a plus-12.6 net rating during their minutes together (plus-4.4 last season). When Garland and Rubio shared the court in 2021-22, Cleveland produced a plus-16.1 net rating. Those veteran guards are different than Mitchell or Garland, but I can easily see them dominating opponents and amplifying each other’s games. A secondary ball-handler, let alone one of All-Star-caliber, behooves them.

Plus, this move ensures the Cavaliers can keep one All-Star on the hardwood for 48 minutes. During non-Garland minutes, with Rubio on the floor, they posted a plus-1.3 net rating. After Rubio’s injury, they spiraled at minus-8.3 whenever Garland caught a breather. Rubio’s passing, probing, and decision-making exceed Mitchell’s, though the hope is Mitchell’s gigantic scoring and overarching creation edge overcome that. I’d bank on it easily.

I love the idea of a pick-and-roll involving one of Cleveland’s premier guards and bigs collapsing the defense, only to feed the other All-Star and let him cook. Flare screens into step-up pick-and-rolls should be a staple for them. Empty-side pick-and-rolls are imperative. The possibilities with two adaptable star guards is tantalizing offensively, even more so when they’re surrounded by a pair of shrewd roll men who double as valuable passing bigs.

Some onus rests on Bickerstaff. He certainly widened his offensive playbook last season and deserves credit for that, yet the bar from 2020-21 was not high (that team was not good, I know). The challenge for ingenuity heightens again. Cleveland is short on floor-spacing forwards after Markkanen and Agbaji’s departure. How does he optimize the Garland-Mitchell-Mobley-Allen quartet and mitigate concerns on the wing offensively?

Even defensively, he’ll have to amend last year’s scheme. Markkanen’s versatility of assignment and ground coverage were crucial to closing grapes and shrinking the floor. Mitchell is a poor screen navigator and point-of-attack option. Discerning how to compensate for Markkanen’s absence, both on the ball and as a helper during drives and ball screens near the nail, will be necessary developments.

Bickerstaff displayed admirable and effective creativity with the personnel at his disposal and the team isn’t short on defensive-minded wings (namely Isaac Okoro, Lamar Stevens, Dean Wade), so there is warranted optimism. But Markkanen’s voluminous and malleable floor-spacing helped buoy some defensive-heavy lineups. It’s not a straightforward solution, though a solution should percolate nonetheless.

A few talking points worth examining: the idea that this is a dreadful defensive backcourt and Mitchell is in a comparable defensive ecosystem to Utah. I refute both.

Mitchell is bad defensively in various ways. I won’t pretend otherwise. He’s not bottom-of-the-league bad, however, and that distinction matters. He’s shown some instincts (albeit inconsistent) on the weak-side and touts dexterous hands to execute as a helper. The screen navigation, decision-making, and point-of-attack chops are all poor, though. He committed to timely rotations more commonly over the second of the first round this year, at least. The objective will be to reorient his approach. Whether it occurs, I am unsure, yet nuance is needed in analyzing why he’s bad and to what degree. It’s also worth noting Cleveland’s defensive cohesion and communication, at least last year, were much better than Utah’s. That transition alone may aid Mitchell.

Garland, on the other hand, is quite dependable. He slithers around screens effectively, reads passing lanes keenly, and is incredibly physical, even with his slender frame. Maneuvering complex weak-side responsibilities can overwhelm him and he’s unable to execute certain plays on and off the ball because of his size, but by and large, he’s not an issue. He holds his own in various manners, despite his limitations.

As for the gap in defensive environments, the Jazz required a help-side rim protector behind Gobert for years to prevent their early playoff departures. They never discovered one. Mobley happens to be the best one in the league. The Jazz also lacked strength and versatility on the wing defensively. Cleveland houses it with Okoro, Stevens, and Wade. There just are not negative parallels between these situations defensively. Mitchell may struggle to the same lengths he did with the Jazz, but the impact may be lessened by virtue of a revamped supporting cast.

Losing Markkanen will prompt a reoriented defensive scheme. It’s really difficult to envision this team’s potential shortcomings or playoff downfall unfolding anything like Utah’s. The contexts are simply quite dissimilar, largely due to Mobley’s existence. He has yet to begin his second year in the league, but all the excitement around his game is justified.

This is exactly the type of move you pounce on to seize advantage of such an unconventionally successful defensive scheme and roster makeup. Allen and Mobley are All-World defenders who cover ground inside and outside like no other big man duo in the league. They’re also not on max deals or anything close to it. Allen is making $20 million. Mobley is owed $8.5 million next season. They’re a pair of top-50 players being severely shortchanged. Cleveland has a unique setup designed to insulate a questionable — not dreadful — perimeter group. It’s reaping the benefits by leaning on this atypical composition to elevate a troublesome offense. That is heady roster-building.

Before acquiring a perennial All-Star in Mitchell, Cleveland already resembled that of a playoff contender with upward mobility for homecourt advantage. Mitchell’s arrival drastically improves their outlook, now and later. He brings them an All-Star-level initiator to avoid those stretches of stagnant half-court offense that buried them time after time over the final couple months. Signed through at least 2024-25, he aptly complements an elite core whose youth belies their win-now skill-sets. He diversifies an offense that relied on so heavily on Garland that things fell apart when he needed a break.

Cleveland had to make some concessions in acquiring Mitchell, but that’s the case for almost any star on the trade block. It identified a clear need for more offensive juice and found an ideal target. This team is going to be a terror for the long haul. Mitchell will sit near the heart of that.

We’re not about a month away from Charlie, the third album from Charlie Puth. Ahead of then, he has offered up a new preview of it via “Smells Like Me,” a single that’s a mix of modern pop and an ’80s synth ballad. He sings on the emotional track, “I hope the memory’s killin’ you over there / Don’t even front, you know that you just can’t compare / What it used to be / I hopе your jacket smells like mе.”

On Twitter today, Puth wrote of the track, “I never thought former pain could morph itself into musical closure. ‘Smells Like Me’ is out now.” In an Instagram Story, he also shared a screenshot of a text he sent to somebody that reads, “I hope people like this one it’s not easy writing songs about the worst time in my life.”

He previously wrote of Charlie, “This album was born on the internet, and I’ve had so much fun making it in front of all of you this past year. 2019 me used to think that in order to be an artist, you had to hide away and talk to nobody to make your art. Turns out you make MUCH better art when you involve millions of people in the process. (For me at least.) I hope you scream cry every word when I sing these songs on tour because they wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you.”

Check out “Smells Like Me” above.

Charlie is out 10/7 via Atlantic. Pre-order it here.

Charlie Puth is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Nicki Minaj is still flying high after receiving MTV’s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at Sunday’s VMAs. Yesterday, she posted a gracious “thank you” note addressed to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the thoughtful gift they sent to congratulate her. Although the power couple did not attend the VMAs in person, they did make sure to acknowledge Nicki’s achievement with a bouquet of white roses, which Nicki captured in a video posted on her Instagram Story. “Congrats on your beautiful award,” the accompanying card read. “Sending you all of our love. Hov and B Holla.”

In turn, Nicki gushed back, “Thank you so much. The both of you. For everything.”

Both of the music stars turned moguls were instrumental in Nicki Minaj’s success. In her Video Vanguard Awards acceptance speech, she named both as inspirations. Jay-Z was among the artists she cited for inspiring her flow along with Doug E. Fresh(!?), Foxy Brown, Lauryn Hill, Lil Wayne, and Slick Rick (Lil Kim was noticeably absent, as fans pointed out on Twitter). Meanwhile, Nicki mentioned Beyoncé as one of the “people who gave me huge opportunities that I’ll never forget,” which also included Britney Spears, Eminem, Kanye West, Madonna, Mariah Carey, and Rihanna.

Those contributions and more have launched Nicki to heights last seen over 20 years ago; her new single, “Super Freaky Girl,” was the first by a solo female rap act to debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100 since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” in 1998.

The Crown is actually doing it. Following rumors that the Netflix series would go for an “easy win” by introducing the young Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the show has officially cast three newcomers as the royal couple. Rufus Kampa and Ed McVey will play Prince William in his teen and early adult years, respectively, while Meg Bellamy will take on the role of Kate Middleton. It will be the first onscreen roles for all three actors.

As previously rumored, The Crown will feature William and Kate’s tabloid fodder romance. Via Deadline (which supplies photos):

McVey’s plot lines will include William’s courtship of Kate, including how they met when both were studying Art History at the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland in 2001. The pair, married in 2011, are now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Given how the Netflix series began dismantling the fairy tale image of the Royal Family by highlighting its treatment of Princess Diana, it will be interesting to see how Season 6 will portray William and Kate, who have had their share of scandals.

In the meantime, The Crown will start streaming its fifth season later this year, which will reportedly feature the last years of Princess Diana’s life. (In a brilliant casting coup, Elizabeth Debicki will play Princess Di in her later years, and you couldn’t ask for more a life-like resemblance.) The production has not confirmed how it will portray her tragic death in Paris while being aggressively pursued by the paparazzi, but it will be impossible not to address the grave moment in the Royal Family’s history.

The Crown Season 5 starts streaming on Netflix in November.

(Via Deadline)

It was only a matter of time before more scandal came for Brett Favre. The pro football Hall of Famer and frequent retiree — who officially retired (for presumably the last time) in 2011 has always been one of the NFL’s golden boys. But now the longtime Green Bay Packer, who finished up his career with the Minnesota Vikings, is at the center of an FBI investigation.

As NBC News reports, the FBI is investigating why Favre — who has an estimated net worth of about $100 million — was paid $1.1 million by the state of Mississippi in both 2017 and 2018 to make a set of motivational speeches, which never happened, and why this money was paid to the football star out of the struggling state’s welfare funds earmarked for the needy.

As Ken Dilanian and Laura Strickler write for NBC News:

Favre has repaid the fees, although not the $228,000 in interest the auditor also demanded. But the revelation by the auditor that $70 million in TANF welfare funds was doled out to a multimillionaire athlete, a professional wrestler, a horse farm, and a volleyball complex are at the heart of a scandal that has rocked the nation’s poorest state, sparking parallel state and federal criminal investigations that have led to charges and guilty pleas involving some of the key players.

Favre hasn’t been accused of a crime or charged, and he declined an interview. His lawyer, Bud Holmes, said he did nothing wrong and never understood he was paid with money intended to help poor children. Holmes acknowledged that the FBI had questioned Favre in the case, a fact that hasn’t previously been reported.

While rumblings of these financial shenanigans first popped up more than two years ago, NBC News reports that they gained renewed attention in July, when a lawyer who was hired specifically to get back some of the misspent money was fired shortly after issuing a subpoena to obtain additional information on the financial dealings between Favre and former governor Phil Bryant.

On October 29, 2021, Favre took to Twitter to fire off a series of tweets defending his position in the case, claiming that he had no idea where the money had come from:

Text messages obtained and verified earlier this year by Mississippi Today seemed to indicate that, as NBC News writes, “Favre sought a $3.2 million grant for a drug company in which he was a shareholder and a $5 million award that built a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played the sport and where he played football.”

In additional texts, Favre talked about gifting Bryant with shares in Prevacus, a drug company developing treatments to lessen the effects of concussions. “Don’t know if legal or not but we need cut him in,” Favre texted in November 2018. A few days later, the quarterback texted again, noting, “Also if legal I’ll give some of my shares to the Governor.”

Favre’s lawyers did not respond to NBC News for comment.

(Via NBC News)

Following the recent trend of early aughts bands returning with new music, Muse are attempting to make a comeback with their ninth studio album, Will Of The People. On this week’s Indiecast, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen question the band’s current critical acclaim and compare the LP to some of their earlier hits. Plus, Indiecast revisits Queens Of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf for its 20th anniversary and discusses the new album by Portland-based power pop artist Mo Troper.

The biggest indie news of the week came in the form of an investigation into the past behavior of Arcade Fire’s frontman. Recent misconduct allegations surfaced against Win Butler, clashing with the musician’s pious image and begging the question: How will these allegations affect the band’s current tour? In other music news, Indiecast discuss the resilience of the MTV VMAs and the headline-making satirical rapper Yung Gravy.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian shouts out Callous Daoboys, a band that exemplifies the exciting music coming out of the heavy rock/metalcore genre today. Steven tells listeners to check out Eli Winter, whose recent self-titled project is a perfect Americana-tinged instrumental for the season.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 104 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.