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Steven Adams’ reputation precedes him when it comes to being one of the strongest players (if not the strongest) in the NBA. His screens leave even the toughest players bruised and battered (ask Jimmy Butler), and his mere presence when a scuffle breaks out tends to deescalate the situation quickly, as he has a tendency to physically separate parties by himself and his calm demeanor and terrifying strength keep guys from trying to go at him.

Our latest exhibit of “Steven Adams is strong as hell” comes from Monday’s game in Memphis between the Grizzlies and Bulls, in which Memphis had runaway to a big advantage in the fourth quarter when Tony Bradley stuck a leg out to trip up Ja Morant on a drive, leading to a tussle between the two. Bradley grabbed Morant by the jersey and wouldn’t let go, which led Morant to shove the ball in his face as things escalated.

It was at that point that Adams stepped in to make sure his All-Star teammate didn’t get into any actual fisticuffs or trouble with the league, and quite literally picked up Bradley and carried him like a child out to midcourt.

The funniest part of it all is Bradley’s reaction, as the 6’10, 245 pound center is in disbelief that he is getting physically carried by someone and is almost laughing as Adams takes him for a stroll. It is an incredible visual and another reminder that Adams is a preposterously strong individual, as well as being a beloved teammate.

Prior to the New York Knicks-Charlotte Hornets game on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, New York City mayor Eric Adams spoke to the crowd. In trying to weave together honoring King’s legacy with basketball, Adams, well, made a fool of himself, which is not exactly a new development for him.

“When the Civil Rights battle was on the line,” Adams began, “Dr. King wanted the ball in his hands.”

Of course, there’s simply no need to link Civil Rights advocacy and basketball. People are capable of understanding the gravity of Dr. King’s work without that comparison, and doing so comes off as minimizing and demeaning. Adams has a history of saying foolish things during his time as a politician, so this isn’t exactly surprising.

It’s nonetheless an absurd quote. The fact Adams felt he needed to parallel sports with King’s work is odd, at best, and should’ve been left in the drafts. It’s hard not to get a chuckle or two out of it as well, mostly stemming from the fact Adams thought such a weird metaphor would resonate well and the crowd offering him the most New York of responses, as someone yells for him to “shut the f**k up.’

Whoever came up with that line, whether it be him or someone else, probably needs to go back to the drawing board. Anyhow, thanks for the laugh, Mayor Adams, if only you offered more as a leader than you do as an unintentional comedian.

Every Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the same thing happens: Republicans publicly honor the civil rights leader’s legacy while doing the things he fought against. This year, the GOP are doing their best to block two voting rights bills, both of which are languishing in part because the GOP has filibustered them. So when prominent Republicans took to social media to praise King Jr., a proponent of voting rights and a hater of the filibuster, they were torched for their hypocrisy.

The two bills are the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Both seek to combat voting restriction bills enacted at the state level by Republican lawmakers. Joe Biden vowed to enact similar legislation early in his presidency. Instead, it met predictable pushback from Republicans, who have used the filibuster to keep them in limbo. Democrats can’t get rid of the filibuster partly thanks to two members of their party: Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

On MLK Jr. Day, members of the leader’s family joined several hundred activists for a march in D.C. They demanded the Senate finally put an end to the filibuster and pass legislation that would have done something King Jr. thought was paramount: easier access to voting for all.

Meanwhile, Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and more — all lawmakers against such legislation, and even against the teaching of racial issues in schools — were releasing fawning tweets about someone who would almost certainly find their actions worth protesting.

McConnell — who denounced Biden’s fiery speech in praise of the voting rights bills as “profoundly unpresidential” — even earned a direct plea from King Jr.’s youngest daughter, Bernice King.

“Pass voting legislation,” she asked him. “In the United States, that is among the most authentic ways to honor my father. If these state voter suppression laws persist, the America my father dreamed about will never come to be. Be a vessel for right.”

Others simply called him out.

McCarthy also tweeted about King Jr., writing that “His words and example inspire us today.” He, too, was called out.

Ditto DeSantis, who late last year actually quoted King Jr. while announcing bizarre legislation meant to stop “Critical Race Thory” — which is not taught in public schools — from being taught in public schools.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, meanwhile, had the distinction of passing a bill that eliminated requirements that teachers teach King Jr. in public schools, then praising him on the holiday established in his name.

Rihanna has been especially inspirational to people around the world lately. When her native country of Barbados officially renounced the British crown and became a Republic this past November, she was declared a “National Hero of Barbados,” by Prime Minister Mia Mottley and rose to the distinguished occasion. Ed Sheeran recently revealed how she inspires him specifically, and asks himself “What would Rihanna do?” when he starts making songs. Her talent clearly stretches across the cultural spectrum. She has also become much more than just a fashion icon, but also a creator of iconic fashion, with her Savage x Fenty line of “lingerie for every body.”

As she has customarily modeled many of the new collections for the Savage x Fenty line, she teased a new Valentine’s Day collection in a series of photos on social media. Wearing a red number with pink accents — naturally — she posed for the evening shoot in a modest living room. She wrapped her legs in fishnet stockings that complemented the laced look. “Valentine’s Day is for me….but you can watch,” read the racy caption.

“Can y’all handle this heat?,” read the caption on Fenty Beauty’s post from the shoot. This marks the first collaboration between her Savage x Fenty and Fenty Beauty cosmetics brand too. The post explained that Rhihanna’s “purrfected pout” is from Fenty’s Glow Bomb Heat lip luminizer and plumper, which is due out soon.

Now as far as the incredibly-anticipated follow-up to ANTI goes, Rihanna was quoted as saying that new music is coming “soon, soon, soon.” And that whatever comes from her next is going to be a totally unexpected sound, because “music is like fashion: you should be able to play.”

4400 (CW, 8:00pm) — The revamped series returns with a much more diverse take on the original sci-fi show. The show’s still following the titled number of minority citizens who vanish and then return as though nothing happened after being gone for a century. No one knows what the hell happened, and memories provide no clues, nor does the usually reliable aging process. When the show picks up, people are all upset about Mildred’s performance, and yep, that includes the government.

Ordinary Joe (NBC, 10:00pm) — James Wolk’s still playing three Joes, including a cop and a nurse and a rock star. All of them are now enduring winter blizzards with a family secret threatening one of the Joes.

Kenan (NBC, 8:00pm) — Kenan Thompson’s namesake clashes with Aubrey this week because, god forbid, she’s growing up.

In case you missed these recent picks:

Yellowjackets (Showtime) — Following Doomcoming, there’s plenty of fallout in the wilderness during the season finale. There’s a five-season plan here, so this is not the final rodeo, and if you wondered if this show is for you, then we’ve got some advice. It’s also 25-year class-reunion time with the group digging deep with one last attempt to vanquish trauma. This piece of slow-burn splatter art has been captivating the masses with plenty of mystery and just enough supernatural spookiness to make the story work. If you haven’t caught up yet — and the cast, including Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress and Melanie Lynskey, is phenomenal — there’s still time to really start theorizing before this finale.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple TV+ film) — Joel Coen adapts the Shakespearean work in a way that’s never been bolder. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand star with all of the murder, ambition, wrath, and madness that one would expect from this story, and expect a stripped-down take on what matters most to communicate this quintessential power-struggle tale.

The Cowboys loss on Sunday to the San Francisco 49ers was as frustrating a performance as a team can put forth in a playoff game. Dallas consistently shot itself in the foot in key moments with drive-killing offensive penalties and drive-extending defensive ones, and there were some baffling decisions made by the coaching staff from a play-calling and game management perspective.

It was not the first time Cowboys fans were frustrated by what felt like overly conservative play-calling and a rampant lack of discipline from the team (which led the NFL in penalties on the season and piled up 14 on Sunday), but that it happened in a playoff game in which the 49ers weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders, particularly in the second half, brought the calls for changes on staff, starting with head coach Mike McCarthy, to a fever pitch. For a coach who isn’t a play-caller on either side of the ball, discipline, game management, and execution in key moments have to be the areas of his greatest impact, and those were glaring negatives on Sunday.

Despite that, it certainly doesn’t seem as if the Cowboys are going to be making another coaching hire anytime soon, as EVP Stephen Jones (son of owner Jerry Jones) gave McCarthy a public vote of confidence on Dallas sports radio on Monday.

McCarthy has been in Dallas for just two seasons, and the Dak Prescott injury a year ago made his first season something of a wash. So, it’s not exactly surprising the Cowboys wouldn’t be looking to make a change after two seasons, but it also is understandable why Cowboys fans wouldn’t feel inspired by McCarthy’s presence at the helm. McCarthy has done little to assuage the concerns some in Dallas had about him based on the end of his tenure in Green Bay, and Sunday’s loss was truly as frustrating a game to watch from a team with as much talent as the Cowboys, who just don’t play with the discipline needed — whether in committing penalties, playing assignment football, or executing on the crucial details in high leverage situations — in the playoffs.

He’ll seemingly get another crack at turning things around next year and giving the Dallas faithful the deep playoff run they’ve craved for two decades now, but confidence isn’t high in Dallas — except from those in charge, apparently.

This weekend, Spider-Man: No Way Home lost its place atop the box office charts, which it held for four weekends, to the new Scream. In that time, though, the threequel made quite the haul. It broke all manner of records, and during a spike in COVID cases yet. People weren’t just excited to see Tom Holland. They were also responding to the rumors that past Peter Parkers could swing by. They sure did, and one of them, Andrew Garfield, was so good about keeping schtum about his appearance that he even kept it a secret from an old co-star.

As caught by Entertainment Weekly, Garfield swung by Josh Horowitz’s podcast Happy Sad Confused to discuss his recent work, including Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tick, Tick… Boom! They also discussed returning to the franchise after doing two Amazing Spider-Man romps in the aughts alongside then-girlfriend Emma Stone, who played the doomed Gwen Stacy. Like many, Stone caught wind that Garfield (and Tobey Maguire) may have secretly filmed scenes for the multiverse-heavy No Way Home. But Garfield wouldn’t tell, not even for her.

“Emma kept on texting me,” Garfield recalled. “She was like, ‘Are you in this new Spider-Man film?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’”

But Stone was adamant. “She was like, ‘Shut up. Just tell me,’” he said. “I’m like, ‘I honestly don’t know’ — I kept it going, even with her. And then she saw it. She was like, ‘You’re a jerk.’”

Garfrield’s Spidey only got two solo films before Sony (and eventually the MCU) decided to re-tool the series, going for the younger Tom Holland. Garfield’s return as Parker has received raves, though it’s his Tick, Tick… Boom! turn that’s been nabbing him trophies and a possible Oscar nomination. Still, No Way Home is the one he’s been caught quietly seeing with crowds.

(Via EW)

Phosphorescent is used to long gaps between albums. His most recent LP, 2018’s C’est La Vie, came out about three years ago, and that arrived over five years after its predecessor, 2013’s Muchacho. Now, after some time away, he’s got something new up his sleeve: “The Full Moon Project,” which he launches today with a cover of Randy Newman’s “Bad News From Home.”

At the end of last week, Phosphorescent took to Instagram to explain what this new endeavor is:

“I’ve been thinkin awhile now on how to release more music separate from the modern album release cycle and all its requirements and pressures etc.. Recently my tiny animal brain had an epiphany: ‘How dense are you, bub?’ it said. ‘This is easy. Record it. Then put it out there. Duh.’ And then, ‘Maybe the moon can help. Look to it.’

So starting here at the top of this year of 2022 and I suppose aiming for the rest of my natural life, I’m gonna release a song with every full moon. For now it’s going to be exclusively cover songs as there’s a mile-long list of songs that’ve meant the world to me and I’d like to try my hand at em.

They may be moon related (as the first one is) or they may have nothin to do with the moon at all I’m open to this thing evolving into whatever it wants to be (new songs, working demos, requests, mashups, ??) In honor of the year’s first full moon (The Wolf Moon!), the first track from this project will be released on Monday, Jan 17. I’m so excited.”

A full moon occurs about every 29.5 days, so expect new tunes from Phosphorescent pretty much once a month from here on out.

Listen to Phosphorescent’s cover of “Bad News From Home” above.

There is one more game left to be played in the NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend, but the Cardinals and Rams’ Monday Night tilt was secondary news in the world of NFL takery because the Dallas Cowboys provided an almost unbelievable number of topics to discuss coming out of a dismal six-point loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

The Cowboys awful performance was stunningly complete in terms of who shared the blame, from the coaching staff through most of the team (with some notable exceptions, of course), as there were questionable coaching decisions and an abundance of self-inflicted mistakes and penalties on both sides of the ball, headlined by a catastrophic final sequence that saw Dallas fail to execute a QB draw with 14 seconds left to set up one shot at a game-winning touchdown.

After the game, Dak Prescott took aim at the officials, as did Mike McCarthy, but few pundits were willing to agree that the Cowboys failure fell on the officials shoulders in the same way that seemingly everyone agreed the game between the Raiders and Bengals was tainted by dreadful calls and officiating blunders. Instead, the focus was on the errors and lack of discipline, and no one reveled in this more than the world’s No. 1 Cowboy hater, Stephen A. Smith.

Smith posted his immediate reaction to Twitter on Sunday, but that was just an amuse bouche for what was to come on Monday, because as has been the case all season, Smith was joined by Cowboys legend Michael Irvin on First Take, who could only sit there and watch as Smith took victory lap after victory lap, calling Dallas an “utter disgrace,” and even blaming Irvin for being so quick to embrace and crown a team that hadn’t won yet.

Smith wasn’t done torturing Irvin at that point, as they then ran a 40-second montage of sad Cowboys fans that CBS cut to throughout the game while Stephen A. cackled.

I’m not sure Smith could’ve scripted a Dallas playoff game that would’ve created more opportunities for him to revel in the Cowboys’ collective misery, from the comedy of errors and penalties to Dak and McCarthy trying to blame officials to the fact that even the most ardent of Dallas supporters at ESPN couldn’t muster up much in the way of a defense for that performance. Smith is going to live off of this for the entire week and, probably, much of next offseason and the lead up to the 2022 regular season.

From American Idol winner to a full-blown pop music sensation, Kelly Clarkson is now a daytime TV darling. With NBC’s The Kelly Clarkson Show, Clarkson is setting herself apart from the daytime clutter with highly shareable segments like the popular “Kellyoke” that sees her challenging herself to cover hits from across the pop culture spectrum. She made waves last year with her covers of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever“and Silk Sonic’s “Leave The Door Open,” and now has showed her dynamism on a cover of Sharon Van Etten’s “The End Of The World.”

Technically a cover of a cover, Van Etten actually first covered the 1962 Skeeter Davis original in 2017 for the inventive soundtrack to Amazon’s The Man In The High Castle. Van Etten’s version gave the perfect cinematic lean for the dystopian show based on a Philip K. Dick novel. But Clarkson’s take is forged deeper in country an Americana. Backed by a five-piece band, it’s the pedal steel guitar that provides the lingering backbone for her to sing over. The performance feels almost like the Grand Ole Opry has come to daytime TV and Clarkson is once again sublime.

Watch Clarkson’s cover of “The End Of The World” above.

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