GoneTrending

As the final season of the long-running zombie apocalypse show The Walking Dead is slowly coming to an end, multiple spinoff shows taking place in the universe are still moving forward, including a Daryl-centric show that is slated for a 2023 release.

While discussing the future of the universe on Talking Dead: The Walking Dead Universe Preview 2022, Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple confirmed some details of the long-awaited Daryl spinoff series led by Norman Reedus, which was first announced in 2020. The untitled series will apparently take place after the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead, which airs this fall. Via Collider:

The Daryl spinoff takes place in France. [The World Beyond coda] is a bit of a tease of some of the things Daryl is going to face… Daryl is a fish out of water to start with. If Daryl finds himself with new people, he’s a fish out of water. In France, in a country that’s going through the apocalypse, [it’s] an entirely different thing. He finds himself having to reinvent himself again, having to find himself again, and also, not being with — probably — the only people in the world he’s comfortable with.

While Daryl will be making the trek to France, it’s still unclear how he will get there in a post-apocalyptic universe (they cannot just charter a jet at this point, right?), and who, if anyone, he will be with. Will Dog get to go to Europe too?!

Melissa McBride was originally signed on to continue her role as Carol, though she dropped out of the series earlier this year. One thing’s for certain: even though the original series coming to a close, there will still be plenty of Walking Dead content to satisfy fans….for a long time!

The final eight episodes of The Walking Dead premiere on October 2nd.

(Via Collider)

Anyone caught up on Ted Lasso (spoilers incoming, obviously) knows that Season 3 has set the scene for the true emergence of Dark Nate. Or, well, maybe Grey Nate.

The once-lovable kit manager turned assistant coach ended the Apple TV+ show’s second season at the helm of West Ham, a rival Premiere League club that Lasso’s AFC Richmond will now see plenty of in the show’s new season. It was a shrewd move for the frustrated Nate, setting off on his own and looking for revenge after feeling under-appreciated in Richmond. And while some fans were shocked by the seemingly abrupt heel turn, it wasn’t as big a surprise to those who read the tea leaves in his two-season arc.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-creator and Coach Beard himself Brendan Hunt touched on fan reaction to the heel turn Nate went through in lashing out at Ted and taking a new job. Because while some were a bit blindsided by the finale, those writing the show thought they had enough “bread crumbs” there for fans to see what might be coming.

In terms of would people pick up on it, the Nate bread crumbs, we knew they were there, but we can’t control whether or not people see them. As people were going along and were like, “What’s happening to Nate?!” Well, it’s been happening to him since season one. People having reactions to it, that’s great, because it means people give a shit. For people to be mad or think we’re doing something that’s not earned, well, I don’t agree, but off you go. But I think we were dropping hints — we were worried we were dropping hints that were too revealing, but for a lot of people it was the other way.

It’s a small glimpse into the creative process that comes with writing shows in the first place, as it’s really tough to know just how perceptive fans will be. Any show that gains even a small following will spark fan theories and speculation about where a show’s plot is headed, and if you give too many hints that end up as red herrings, then you could upset people just as much as you may delight them when a plot line ends in a way that satisfies all the story notes that came before it.

When it comes to Nate, however, all the signs that he could be breaking bad become very clear in hindsight whether you saw them in the moment or not. Which is what makes Season 3’s looming Nate storyline so intriguing. We now know that Nate (and actor Nick Mohammed) can play the part of the bad guy. We just don’t know how far things will go in what might be the show’s final season.

[via THR]

The new film Bullet Train sends Brad Pitt and a host of co-stars playing fellow assassins speeding through the night on a high-speed train heading from Tokyo to Kyoto. Though this exact journey hasn’t served as the backdrop for a film before (there is a 1975 Japanese film of the same name but it follows a train on a different route), Bullet Train is far from the first thriller to take place on a locomotive filled with passengers. Trains have played crucial roles in cinematic thrills even before the 1903 blockbuster The Great Train Robbery, and it’s easy to see why. The tight spaces, the high speeds, the screeching brakes, the spark of wheels on rails, the easy symbolism of a train charging into a tunnel: trains offer all of that and more.

But are trains the best mass transit system for thrillers? Maybe. But before giving trains the crown, let’s consider a few other contenders, the films made about them, and what makes each uniquely thrilling.

The Case for Planes

Planes offer some serious competition when it comes to tense movies about public transportation. Early aviation movies tended to be about aerial combat, high-flying daredevils, and tough-talking airmail couriers working in fictional South American countries (OK, that’s pretty much just Only Angels Have Wings). But the years after World War II saw more and more ordinary folks taking to the sky to see the world — and discover the (mostly imagined) terrors of air travel. While accidents were relatively rare (if less rare than today) they weren’t non-existent. And no amount of reassurances made it possible for passengers to forget they were hurtling through the sky in a metal tube. A lot could go wrong!

In movies, it went wrong pretty frequently. In the 1957 Zero Hour!, half a passenger plane’s passengers and crew (including the pilot and co-pilot) become ill after choosing the fish dinner, forcing a PTSD-stricken ex-fighter pilot to bring the plane down. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because the 1980 parody Airplane! borrowed its plot. But Airplane! had more than Zero Hour! in its sights. The film arrived after a decade of disaster films that included the 1970 hit Airport (based on a novel by Zero Hour! writer Arthur Hailey) and its sequels. Filled with stars, the films imagined all manner of horrible things that could befall airplanes, airports, and those who work there. (The original film includes both a biblical-level snowstorm and a suicide bomber.)

The airborne disaster film was a winning formula, at least for a while, its success predicated on the sense that flying, though largely safe, never really feels safe (and always had the potential to be unpleasant; imagine being seated next to Charo for a transatlantic flight). And sometimes it’s decidedly not safe at all. Whether drawing from real or imagined incidents, films like Sully and Flight put viewers in the center of some harrowing worst-case scenarios. Planes also present all sorts of possibilities for bad guys, from hijackers to terrorists to the jet-destroying gremlins of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (whether in an episode of the Twilight Zone or as the only really successful part of Twilight Zone: The Movie). Maybe you get ensnared in the plot of a charming terrorist, as in Red Eye. Maybe you’re a President of the United States unexpectedly called upon to kick ass, as in Air Force One. Maybe you’re John McClane’s wife and you find yourself stuck in the air until your husband allows your plane to land safely. Maybe you’re an air marshal who received threatening text messages mid-air, as in Non-Stop. Flying: it’s scary stuff!

The Case for Automobiles

The argument for automobiles is largely founded on unmet potential. First, let’s define some terms: yes, cars are thrilling, as one film after another has proven. But cars aren’t designed for mass transit. So that leaves buses. And, yes, as Speed proved, buses can provide a fine setting for thrillers. And you know what other movie does that? Exactly.

There are a few, including a pair in films starring Clint Eastwood. In Dirty Harry, Eastwood’s Harry Callahan has to contend with “Scorpio” (Andrew Robinson), a Zodiac Killer-inspired madman who kidnaps a school bus filled with kids (a sequence that would later inspire the worst mass kidnapping case in American history). Eastwood’s 1977 film The Gauntlet climaxes with Eastwood and co-star Sandra Locke using an armored bus as a shield against a bunch of corrupt cops. The second A Nightmare on Elm Street opens and closes with a pair of (literally) nightmarish bus sequences.

And, for a while, that was kind of it. Like Airplane!, the 1976 film The Big Bus parodies the era’s disaster movies. The bus setting is part of the joke. Speed proves they don’t have to be, but few other films have taken advantage of the bus’s potential — at least until recently. The best scenes of both Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and the Bob Odenkirk action film Nobody both take place on buses. Could a bus-aissance be upon us?

The Case for Others

Boats: There’s a case to be made for boats, sure. Plenty of thrilling movies have been set aboard boats. But, all the doomed immigrants of Titanic aside, boat movies are rarely about public transportation. They’re more often about military vessels, fishing ships, luxury liners, or yachts. Eliminating the many great boat movies set on any of the above doesn’t leave a lot, though the ferry scene in The Dark Knight is pretty great. Sorry, boats.

Blimps: There are blimp thrillers, most famously Black Sunday (in which a crazed Bruce Dern threatens the Super Bowl in the Goodyear blimp) and The Hindenburg, a dramatization of the famed airship disaster. And, speaking of the Hindenburg, it serves as the setting for a memorable scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But, again, it’s a pretty narrow pool.

Elevators: Again, there’s potential there (if we want to count elevators as mass transit systems) but not much of a sample size. The great elevator thriller has yet to be written (so consider that a challenge).

The Case for Trains

And so we return to trains, zooming pods of paranoia that have played host to everything from Hitchcock’s twisty espionage thriller The Lady Vanishes (and, of course, key scenes in Strangers on a Train) to the zombie hordes of Train to Busan. They’ve been battlegrounds for James Bond since From Russia With Love and served as settings for everything from classic westerns to the post-apocalyptic future of Snowpiercer. Factor in subway thrillers—and New York subway movies are practically a genre unto themselves thanks to classics like 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and The Warriors—and the argument grows even stronger.

Pitted against planes they offer the same sense of tight confinement while allowing for greater mobility. (And, unlike planes, you can fight on top of them as well as within them.) As for boats, it’s dramatic to throw an enemy into the ocean but even more dramatic to toss one off of a moving locomotive. Buses and other vehicles might someday offer a challenge but for now, trains look, to borrow the title of another solid train thriller, pretty unstoppable.

As Nicki Minaj slowly gets back into the groove of releasing new music, her decade-plus of classic, game-changing hits will be honored at the 2022 MTV VMAs. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming show will honor Nicki with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, and she will perform at the show for the first time since 2018. Nicki’s also nominated for a Best Hip-Hop Award thanks to her 2022 singles “Do We Have A Problem?” “Bussin,” and “We Go Up,” as well as her song-stealing feature from Coi Leray’s “Blick Blick.”

Bruce Gillmer, president of music, music talent, programming, and events at Paramount (MTV’s parent company) said in a statement, “Nicki has broken barriers for women in hip-hop with her versatility and creative artistry. She has shifted the music industry and cemented her status as a global superstar with her crossover appeal, genre-defying style, and continuing to be unapologetically ‘Nicki.’” Mrs. Minaj herself told fans, “You don’t want to miss my performance,” on Twitter, sharing a promo clip containing snippets of a bunch of her previous videos. She also asked her Barbz to suggest songs for her to perform, with one caveat — they couldn’t mention her upcoming single “Super Freaky Girl,” which drops on August 12.

The 2022 MTV VMAs will air on 8/28 live from Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey at 8 pm ET. Performers include Anitta, J Balvin, and more, while nominees include Jack Harlow, Kendrick Lamar, and Lil Nas X.

The Sandman arrived on the small screen three decades after its inception within Neil Gaiman’s mind. Let’s get real here: a lot could have gone wrong. The dark-fantasy vibe, for one thing, must have been incredibly difficult to adapt (and this series embraces that trickiness with wildly, effectively exaggerated visuals), and on a story level, The Sandman means so very much to so many people. Everyone who’s read The Sandman remembers how they learned of the series, who recommended it, and whether they dove into the beginning or in the middle (I happened to first pick up the “Calliope” story, and had the distinct pleasure of talking to Neil about how the story began as a take on writer’s block and “the need for ideas” yet transformed into something largely different). Yet the bottom line is this: The Sandman hits everyone hard, and it gifts people with what they’re looking for at the precise moment that they discovered the saga.

One need only listen to Marc Maron’s relevant edition of the WTF podcast, in which he met up with Neil after explaining that he’d spent his own “time with The Sandman,” and that discovery coincided with his own drug use. Maron admitted that he was so amped up that he interpreted both Alan Moore’s Hellblazer and The Sandman as “journalism,” which… it happens. This is a terribly funny admission, and Gaiman responded, “I love that it gave you what you needed at the time that you needed it.” Maron’s take might be out there, but he’s not off base with his devotion and enthusiasm.

Fortunately, there’s also plenty to love about Netflix’s The Sandman, which is at once lugubrious and striking and delicious. Tom Sturridge gives a perfect representation of all of Dream’s angular aspects (both physically and internally). Gwendoline Christie portrays the most regal version of Gaiman’s Lucifer Morningstar on record, and Patton Oswalt (who a devoted Gaiman nerd to the core) swoops into souls as voice of Matthew the Raven. And then there’s Death, who is (as one devotee described to me before I surrendered to the comic book) “a total sweetheart.” Gaiman originally wrote her as an adorable, ankh-sporting goth girl, full of boundless energy and positivity, despite her incomprehensible, difficult job of escorting human souls to the Sunless Lands.

In the ongoing Audible The Sandman series, Death is portrayed by Kat Dennings, who told us that she asked Neil how to play Death, and he honest-to-God told her to “be yourself.” She totally did that, meaning that she maintained Death’s bubbly and “bright side at the forefront” aura with a bit of a darker vibe simmering underneath, and since Death’s duties are very grim, Kat was “playing a little bit against what is happening in these scenes.” And I absolutely dig the way that Kat portrayed Death, who turned out spot-on for the audio-only version of her story.

Fast forward to The Sandman‘s recent arrival on Netflix, and I fired up the 10-episode season and mostly enjoyed the first five episodes, but I shall not lie: Death’s impending arrival was what I really wanted. She would make or break this adaptation for me, and my god, I was not disappointed. The Netflix version strikes a different tone for the character with the same ultimate effect, which is suitable for the onscreen Death, who arrives in Episode 6, “The Sound Of Her Wings.” It’s an episode that’s not as gorgeously rendered in an aesthetic sense as the rest, but emotionally speaking, it’s a masterpiece.

Death was always going to be the hardest character for anyone to pull off, and die-hard fans of The Sandman (damn well) spotted Dream sitting on this park bench and waited for Death to appear alongside him. In hindsight, I’m realizing that the most effective approach to Death (in live-action form) was for her unyielding positivity to be understated, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste (who is obviously not a pale goth girl) nailed this role. Here’s where I must mention how (last year) Neil saw the (ridiculous) backlash following Kirby’s casting and promptly declared, “I give zero f*cks about people who don’t understand/haven’t read Sandman whining… that Death isn’t white enough.” He further urged, “Watch the show, make up your minds.” Enough said, and it’s also worth noting that Death, Dream, and the rest of the Endless do not have a specific race.

Death, as Kirby portrays her, takes on a wisdom-filled, warmer glow, rather than an overwhelmingly perky one. One particularly well-known line — “You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification in this or any other plane!” — rolls right out of her British accent like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She’s a cocksure version of Death, tossing out the “fat pigeons” joke with droll humor. She’s also got the right amount of swagger to pull off those moments when the bros fawn all over her, including one dude who’s so excited at her promise to meet again (“soon”) that the interactions come off as tragicomic.

Oh, I did grow teary-eyed when Death comforted a baby immediately before the child died from SIDS. As well, Dream seamlessly bounces right off Death, with Tom Sturridge somehow doing nothing and everything all at once while he observed his sister going about her unfathomable duties. These humans desperately needed to feel her presence as they faded away from the realm of the living.

The team of Death and Dream delivered pure magic in the season’s best episode, one that serves to remind everyone about how much The Sandman helped people get through life’s tough episodes. Gaiman has spoken about how people frequently speak to him with gratitude for helping them “get through dark times.” And I’d be willing to bet that Death’s introduction (and Dream’s reaction) is what comes to mind for a majority of these people when they thank Neil Gaiman for the entire saga.

One more thing that this episode pulls off: translating Gaiman’s infusions of history and mythology in perfect lockstep with the saga’s spirit. To that end, this episode heads back in time to witness Death and Dream back in 1389, when they first met up with Hob Gadling, the rambunctious bar brat who became immortal. His adventures began thanks to the gifted siblings, including Dream looking like the third Oasis brother. These period costumes are more enjoyable than they have any right to be.

All of this arrives with lessons for every character, other than Death, who’s already the wisest sibling of the Endless. And I’m pleasantly surprised at how the season as a whole turned out because I admit to feeling apprehensive as heck on whether Netflix could rise to the occasion. Because we all know that Netflix is having difficulties lately, and I really couldn’t bear the idea of The Sandman becoming The Pentaverate: Part II. Yet Neil Gaiman’s genre-stretching, sprawling comic gook series has finally come to deserving life. Mind you, Gaiman once stated that “I’d rather see no Sandman movie made than a bad Sandman movie.” It’s safe to assume that he felt the same way about a TV series, and although this show’s about much more than Death, Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s spin on an iconic Neil Gaiman character makes The Sandman a real stunner.

The Sandman is currently streaming on Netflix.

Even if you aren’t into K-pop, there’s simply no denying that Blackpink is one of the biggest pop acts in the world. So naturally, with their new album Born Pink on the way, there had to be a world tour to promote it. Today, the band announced the upcoming 27-city schedule, which kicks off in Seoul this October and wraps up in Auckland, New Zealand next June. The flyer also promises some “…and more” dates which will presumably be added or announced after the tour is underway.

Major American cities that’ll see Blackpink during the North American leg of the tour include Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, two dates in Chicago, two dates in New York (by way of Newark, New Jersey), and Los Angeles. The European swing will take the girls through two dates in London, Barcelona, Cologne, two Paris shows, Berlin, and Amsterdam. The Asian leg will include Bangkok, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Jakarta, Singapore, and Manila.

Earlier this month, Blackpink announced the release date for the first single from Born Pink, “Pink Venom.” It’ll drop on 8/19 via YG Entertainment and Interscope. You can pre-save it here. As far as the album goes, all we know is it drops in September and Ryan Tedder’s on it. You can grab tickets at blackpinkofficial.com, but only if you’re incredibly fast — you know they’re selling out in 0.7 seconds.

After news broke last week that HBO Max had shelved the upcoming Batgirl movie, many writers and directors have been coming to the defense of directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Marvel president Kevin Feige reached out to the directors, praising their work on both Batgirl and Ms. Marvel, while Edgar Wright and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn also sent their love. Meanwhile, Kevin Smith is taking a different approach.

The director, who is well underway promoting the upcoming Clerks III, took to his series Hollywood Babble-On with Ralph Garman to discuss the controversial move of HBO Max canceling the movie’s release while it was nearly completed and had several high-profile cameos.

“It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie,” Smith said to a sea of applause (via New York Post). “I don’t give a sh*t if the movie was absolutely f*cking dogsh*t, and I guarantee you it wasn’t.”

He added, “The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel and it was a wonderful f*cking show. And they had more money to do Batgirl than Ms. Marvel.” It was previously reported that Batgirl cost upwards of $90 million, a steep increase from their original budget of $70 million (reports claimed that the budget increased due to COVID production delays).

Smith is historically a huge DC fan, and the director also confirmed that HBO Max has canceled his highly-anticipated adaptation of Strange Adventures. Though maybe with some more DVD sales, he will eventually get the show back on track.

(Via The New York Post)

This article originally appeared on 06.30.16

When San Francisco photographer Lisa Robinson was about to have her second child, she was both excited and nervous.

Sure, those are the feelings most moms-to-be experience before giving birth, but Lisa’s nerves were tied to something different.

Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images.

She and her husband already had a 9-year-old son but desperately wanted another baby. They spent years trying to get pregnant again, but after countless failed attempts and two miscarriages, they decided to stop trying.

Of course, that’s when Lisa ended up becoming pregnant with her daughter, Anora. Since it was such a miraculous pregnancy, Lisa wanted to do something special to commemorate her daughter’s birth.

So she turned to her craft — photography — as a way to both commemorate the special day, and keep herself calm and focused throughout the birthing process.

---

Normally, Lisa takes portraits and does wedding photography, so she knew the logistics of being her own birth photographer would be a somewhat precarious new adventure — to say the least.

She initially suggested the idea to her husband Alec as a joke.

“After some thought,” she says, “I figured I would try it out and that it could capture some amazing memories for us and our daughter.”

In the end, she says, Alec was supportive and thought it would be great if she could pull it off. Her doctors and nurses were all for Lisa taking pictures, too, especially because it really seemed to help her manage the pain and stress.

In the hospital, she realized it was a lot harder to hold her camera steady than she initially thought it would be.

She had labor shakes but would periodically take pictures between contractions.

“Eventually when it was time to push and I was able to take the photos as I was pushing, I focused on my daughter and my husband and not so much the camera,” she says.

“I didn’t know if I was in focus or capturing everything but it was amazing to do.”

The shots she ended up getting speak for themselves:

Lisa’s husband Alec.

Hello, baby Anora!

An overcome father.

Newborn Anora’s first experience with breastfeeding.

“Everybody was supportive and kind of surprised that I was able to capture things throughout. I even remember laughing along with them at one point as I was pushing,” Lisa recalled.

In the end, Lisa was so glad she went through with her experiment. She got incredible pictures — and it actually did make her labor easier.

Would she recommend every mom-to-be document their birth in this way? Absolutely not. What works for one person may not work at all for another.

However, if you do have a hobby that relaxes you, figuring out how to incorporate it into one of the most stressful moments in your life is a pretty good way to keep yourself calm and focused.

Expecting and love the idea of documenting your own birthing process?

Take some advice from Lisa: “Don’t put pressure on yourself to get ‘the shot'” she says, “and enjoy the moment as much as you can.”

Lisa’s mom took this last one.

The last time we saw Kim Wexler on Better Call Saul, she was breaking up with Jimmy. “We are bad for each other,” she said, which is the kind of thing you say after (literally) ruining someone’s life. “I have had the time of my life with you. But we are bad for everyone around us. Other people suffer because of us. Apart, we’re OK, but together, we’re poison.” She walks out of the door of their condo — and drives to… Florida?

Poor Kim.

Little is known about tonight’s episode of, the penultimate of the series, other than it’s written and directed by co-creator Vince Gilligan. And the title: “Waterworks.” We — and by proxy, Cinnabon’s employee of the year — were informed in “Breaking Bad” (the episode, not the show) that Kim is employed at Palm Coast Sprinklers in Titusville, Florida, which the Breaking Bad wiki helpfully notes is “located west of the Kennedy Space Center.” Cool. The company’s slogan is “Watering Your World Since 1978.”

You know what else happened in 1978? The Ramones released their fourth studio album, Road to Ruin, featuring the hit single “I Wanna Be Sedated.” Drugs, like the kind that Saul’s client Walter “Heisenberg” White cooked, make you sedated, and Gene / Jimmy / whatever on the road to reconnecting with Kim (including a heated phone booth call) with ruin their lives. IT’S ALL CONNECTED. Vince Gilligan, you’ve done it again!

Anyway, the waterworks will be flowing tonight.

After two consecutive shortened offseasons due to the NBA shuffling its schedule after shutting down at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the league finally got back on a regular schedule this summer, allowing for players and team personnel to take real vacations again (which is why trade rumors have come to a complete halt the last couple weeks) as well as the return of star-studded pickup runs and pro-am appearances.

The Drew League, Seattle Pro-Am, and more have seen the likes of LeBron James, DeMar DeRozan, Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, Paolo Banchero, and more step onto the court in front of fans, but even more big names have gotten together in pickup runs to stay sharp in the dog days of the offseason. The biggest pickup run in the NBA these days is Rico Hines’ L.A. game, where the now-Raptors assistant hosts many of the world’s best players to get work in and earn some game-speed reps in the offseason.

Over the weekend, a clip of Scottie Barnes and James Harden went viral on social media, as the reigning Rookie of the Year put the clamps on the Sixers All-Star full-court, showing off his incredible defensive abilities against one of the best 1-on-1 players in the league.

That sequence earned Barnes plenty of buzz on social media, but it also got him some praise from Harden himself, who made sure to bring everyone together at the end of the run and talk glowingly about the competitive spirit of the run (which he missed after two summers off) and highlighting Barnes’ defense in particular, saying the young star is “a dog.”

“I like the competitive spirit that’s going on in here,” Harden said. “Like, Scottie picked me up full court. It’s pickup. First week of August. He don’t give a f*ck. He got that mindset. He a dog. Everybody should have that mindset, especially if you want to get paid, take care of your family. I love the work, man. We ain’t had a pickup in a couple of years, so this sh*t feel good to get back in the gym and competing for real.”

It’s a fairly stark difference from the beef brewing between Dejounte Murray and Paolo Banchero up in Seattle, where the two young stars went at it in Isaiah Thomas’ tournament and continued that on social media. Harden appreciates the young fella taking it to him because that’s what he needs to try and get in game shape and find that level he needs to get back to an All-Star level next season in Philly. For Barnes, he continues to earn his reputation of being one of the league’s best wing defenders already, with the most important recognition of those abilities coming from his peers.