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The Golden State Warriors are hoping to get themselves back into title contention this season after two years of being out of the playoffs. There’s plenty of reason for optimism with Stephen Curry is coming off of a season where his performance down the stretch earned him MVP buzz and Klay Thompson’s eventual return to the lineup after ACL and Achilles injuries cost him the past two seasons.

Last year also saw the return of Draymond Green seemingly being everywhere, all the time on defense, which will again be critical to the Warriors regaining contender status. Part of Green’s value is the way he flies around and covers for mistakes others make, but this also leads to him living on the edge of being in control. We have seen on plenty of occasions what can happen when he loses that control, and unfortunately for Austin Rivers, that happened on Wednesday night in preseason action between Denver and Golden State when the Nuggets guard took a flying knee from Draymond to the ribs on a closeout.

This is, I guess one could say, vintage Draymond, as his propensity for legs flailing about became a huge story back in 2016 when he was suspended for a game in the Finals for it. This is Green’s essence though, selling out so fully on a contest in the preseason that he can’t help but try to do anything to stop Rivers once he recognizes it’s a shot fake, even if that thing is sticking his leg out and ultimately kneeing Austin in the ribs.

Rivers would stay down for a bit, understandably, and Green was handed a rare preseason flagrant for a move that would’ve looked more at home in the Octagon than on the basketball court. Maybe it bodes well for the Warriors that Green is back to living on that knife’s edge, but Rivers was the unfortunate recipient of what happens when he falls to the wrong side.

Earlier this year, Diplo was sued by his ex-girlfriend, Shelley Auguste, for sexual battery, assault, defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and fraud. She alleges that the producer “recorded video of their sexual encounter despite her telling him she didn’t want that” and attempted to “coax her into a threesome with a girl she believes was underaged at the time.” The lawsuit was filed after the producer requested a restraining order against her and alleged she was engaging in revenge porn.

Diplo has yet to respond to the allegations of sexual assault, but that changed on Wednesday when he posted a lengthy message to his Instagram page. He referred to Auguste as “SA” and called her “a stalker [who] scammed her way into my life and tried to extort me for millions and then sued me when she didn’t get what she wanted.” He added, “I will keep this story easy to read because I know the Internet has a short attention span and it was my goal to never address a stalker.” He then went on:

I will refer to her as “SA” (and you can find anything easily online). She was an obsessed fan of mine, and after I relinquished all contact with her, it appears that her only purpose in life has been to disrupt my work, my business, harass me and my close friends and attack me and threaten my family. To be clear, SA was not a minor when I had conversations or sexual intercourse with her. Her own text messages admit this. More on this below.

I had a night of consensual sex with her. Basically, SA reached out to me and I declined a few times but at one time decided to meet her. After that experience, we had exchanged texts for a few months, there was small talk, sexual flirting, she would send me pics and videos.. Eventually it got too much to handle and I stopped contact with her when I realized she had started to become obsessed with me. It began as a nightmare of almost three years of her harassing and threatening me and my family and friends.

SA would offer her friends and other people to have sexual experiences with, and that’s when I began to get suspicious that she was engaging in criminal activity, and was possibly a call girl.

Diplo later explained how he was forced to block “a few accounts” that he believed belonged to SA and “thought she was out of my life” as a result. He then shared how he was affected by an alleged instance of SA stalking him. “One time I just hid in my neighbor’s house and ignored her. I don’t think she could physically harm me, but I was afraid she was going to harm herself,” he wrote. “We always took the high road when dealing with her. We tried to deal with her in court and help her find help. Our detective had found out she had a previous restraining order against her in Florida after we rounded up many of her fake accounts.”

He concluded his message by writing, “I am not this person and I won’t be extorted by anyone no matter how stinging the press can be.” He adeded, “The past 2 years I’ve never been bothered by these rumors if anything it has made me stronger and smarter, all of my friends and partners have never questioned me and that was what has been important to me. The people in my life know me for who I really am.”

You can read Diplo’s full statement in the post above.

The draconian anti-abortion law signed into law in Texas in late August — and then held firm by the right-leaning Supreme Court — was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Wednesday night, reports The New York Times. The law, which banned the procedure after a mere six weeks — before most women even know they’re pregnant — was met with condemnation, some of it very creative. But for now, at least, those against the law can breathe a sigh of relief.

The decision came from Judge Robert L. Pitman, a Federal District Court judge in Austin. The Biden administration, via Attorney General Merrick Garland, had sued the state of Texas to halt the law. Pittman agreed. In a 113-page ruling, he declared that “the State of Texas, including its officers, officials, agents, employees and any other persons or entities acting on its behalf, are preliminarily enjoined from enforcing Texas Health and Safety Code.”

After Texas asked that they be allowed to appeal the ruling before it takes effect, Pittman had a simple response. “The State has forfeited the right to any such accommodation by pursuing an unprecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right,” he wrote.

“That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide;” Pittman added, “this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”

The law, colloquially known as SB8 (Senate Bill 8), has been widely seen as a volley towards the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal nationwide. As such, even the temporary reprieve was met with much rejoicing.

https://twitter.com/SRuhle/status/1445920288370274308’

Though some reminded people that it might not last that long.

(Via NYT)

The Chicago Sky are headed to the WNBA Finals, where they will meet the Mercury or the Aces — with Phoenix having a chance to punch their ticket on Wednesday night. Chicago finished off a 3-1 series win over the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday with a dominant performance against the league’s No. 1 seed, cruising to a 79-69 win that didn’t really feel as in doubt as the 10-point margin would indicate.

Leading the way for the Sky was none other than Candace Parker, who showed out with 17 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists, doing a bit of everything for Chicago en route to the win. Parker was seemingly everywhere on both ends of the court, getting blocks and buckets inside, while also applying ball pressure on the perimeter, starting fastbreaks, and launching threes.

It was the type of performance in an elimination spot that WNBA fans have come to expect from the legend, who had plenty of help from her co-stars on the Sky. Courtney Vandersloot had it going early, pouring in 19 points to lead the Sky in scoring, lighting Connecticut up from three-point range early as they kept going under on screens to the dismay of just about everyone watching who wasn’t a Sky fan.

Also getting in on the fun was Kahleah Copper, who had 18 points and six rebounds in the win as she continues to be one of the breakout stars of the postseason in helping push Chicago to the Finals, showing off incredible handles and finishing skill once at the rim.

On the other side, league MVP Jonquel Jones had 25 points and 11 rebounds, trying to do every thing she could to keep the Sun in the game and force a Game 5, but it just wasn’t enough to withstand the onslaught from the Sky.

Chicago will sit back and watch the second semifinal out West to see if they’ll be able to book a flight out soon, as the 6-seed will need to take a third straight series as the road team if they are to win their first championship in franchise history.

The NBA has seen an incredible percentage of players get vaccinated as the preseason has gotten underway, as 96 percent of the league has had at least one shot. There are a few holdouts still, most notably Kyrie Irving, and those players are going to face similar testing protocols and restrictions to movement while on the road as a year ago, while vaccinated players will have those restrictions mostly pulled off.

In some markets, players won’t be able to play home games if they aren’t vaccinated, which is currently the predicament the Nets find themselves in with Irving and are now facing a difficult decision about whether they can deal with him being in and out of the lineup as a part-time player. San Francisco and now L.A. also have vaccine mandates for those who live and work in those cities, but the only city where visiting players who aren’t vaccinated will face tougher restrictions is Toronto.

The NBA has gotten clearance from the government to have teams fly in and out of Toronto to play games this year, avoiding another relocation to Tampa, but for the small percentage of unvaccinated players, they will have to be on their best behavior. As Shams Charania of The Athletic reported on Wednesday night, any unvaccinated player who leaves their hotel for anything beyond a team activity (so, a practice or game) will face criminal charges that could bring a six-month prison sentence.

That is quite the penalty and will require teams with any unvaccinated players to be sure those players are aware that they aren’t facing just a suspension or fine from the league for breaking protocol, but real punishment and criminal charges if they do so in Toronto this year.

Preseason basketball is rarely all that noteworthy on a national scale, as most big names are either in street clothes on the bench or are simply trying to get a little run in, find their flow, and stay healthy.

However, in Atlanta on Wednesday night we got a rare, legit highlight out of the preseason contest between the Hawks and Cavs in the fourth quarter when John Collins, who for some reason was still in the game, threw down a vicious alley-oop, and-one dunk on top of a late rotating Jarrett Allen.

There are few players in the NBA who are better at producing poster dunks than John Collins, as he rather famously put his playoff dunk over Joel Embiid on a t-shirt to wear to the next game, and on this occasion, Collins caught Allen napping a bit, and if you come over late on a Collins alley-oop, it’s best if you don’t come over at all. Allen not only had the indignity of getting dunked on but picked up a foul as well for just sort of wandering into Collins’ way and bumping him on the attempt.

It’s not often you get the bar for dunk of the season set this high in the preseason, but the recently well-paid Collins made his presence felt in a big way.

Jason Kidd is the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, his third stint as a head coach in the NBA, and he will be tasked with figuring out how to make the Luka Doncic-Kristaps Porzingis partnership work as the expectation this season is for the Mavs to breakthrough that first round ceiling to be a contender in the West.

There will be a lot of work to be done on Kidd’s end to get those two on the same page, particularly when it comes playoff time, but in the meantime, Kidd also has some work to do with getting comfortable in Dallas overall. I’m not just talking about on the bench, but also in front of the camera, because it’s clearly been awhile since Kidd had to take individual photos during team media day after a number of years as an assistant and the results were hilariously awkward.

Whoever made Kidd put on that giant collared retro shirt wasn’t doing him any favors, but neither was Jason choosing to stand there as stiff as possible. As a result, Kidd became fodder for NBA Twitter to do its thing, as there were plenty of jokes about him looking like knockoff Vin Diesel, a regular at a bowling league, and, of course, some Bryan Colangelo collar jokes.

Landing a hit record is already hard enough, but a Diamond-certified song is even harder. Luckily for Kanye West, he recently achieved both thanks to one of the most popular songs off his third album Graduation. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) announced that the rapper’s 2007 track “Stronger” just became his first Diamond-certified single. What that denotes is that the single sold at least 10 million copies since its release 14 years ago.

Four months after its release, “Stronger” became the rapper’s third No. 1 single when it reached the top of the singles chart at the end of September in 2007. Additionally, the song won a plethora of awards, which includes Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2007 BET Awards, Video Of The Year, Best Director, and Best Editing at the 2007 MTV VMAs, and Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2008 Grammy Awards.

One of the most infamous stories behind “Stronger” is that it was reportedly mixed more than 75 times before and after its release. West worked with eight audio engineers and 11 mix engineers from all over the world on the song, but it wasn’t until he called on Timbaland to re-do the track’s drum programming that he felt satisfied. Still, West later decided the song wasn’t nearly as good as Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which he sampled for “Stronger.”

In exactly one month, 88Rising, the record label and management company home to Asian and Asian-American artists, will deliver the third rendition of their Head In The Clouds festival. It’s an event the group has hosted every year since 2018, with the exception of 2020, due to the pandemic. Ahead of the showcase’s kick-off on November 6, 88Rising announced a new addition to the festival’s lineup: DJ and producer Illenium.

Illenium’s addition to the fest comes after he shared Fallen Embers earlier this year. He joins an already stacked lineup for Head In The Clouds. Other performers for the showcase include Joji, Saweetie, Guapdad 4000, Japanese Breakfast, Beadoobee, and many more.

During an interview with Uproxx about the festival last month, Ollie Zhang, 88Rising’s Chief Of Staff, spoke about the diversity of the showcase’s lineup.

“I think that’s always been 88Rising’s mission from since the start, ever since we were just shooting videos and putting them up on YouTube,” he said. “The goal was always to highlight all different types of music. Asian music is so broad and diverse. Everyone’s coming from a different place and we want to be able to represent that on the stage as well.”

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

Believe it or not but Rocket League has been going strong since 2015. The idea is so simple. Take a car, give it some rockets, give players a soccer ball with two goals, and let them loose. The result is one of those games that is incredibly easy to sink hours into.

With a game this popular there have been plenty of crossovers with some of entertainment’s most famous cars, such as the Fast & Furious series. Unsurprisingly, this trend has no sign of stopping anytime soon and with the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die, coming to the theaters on Friday it was the perfect opportunity for Rocket League to embrace a new crossover.

James Bond has had a lot of different cars over the years, but the Aston Martin Valhalla will be the car making its way into Rocket League for any Bond superfans that want to use it in the game. It’s really a perfect combination when seeing it in action. Bond’s cars have always had modifications made to them and rocket boosters are a common one so it only makes sense that he would use it to score goals in Rocket League. How else is he going to spend his time when he’s not saving the world?

Anyone interested in using Bond’s car in Rocket League can do so for free, as it’s available on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation Network, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo Game Store.