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The first event of Sunday’s 2021 NBA All-Star festivities was the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, and this year with only All-Stars and HBCU alum Robert Covington participating, the field was cut to six and the two guards in the field — Chris Paul and Luka Doncic — earned first round byes.

That meant the big fellas had the stage to start, as Domantas Sabonis took on Julius Randle and Nikola Vucevic faced Covington in the opening round. Sabonis and Vucevic cruised to the second round by not missing anything — the pass, layup, or three-pointer — and the expectation from most was that the competition would get a bit stiffer in Round 2 with the guards getting their chance.

However, Sabonis torched Doncic, who didn’t exactly look to be dialed in as he stayed in sweats for the competition, as the Mavs star couldn’t get the pass to go in and Sabonis made his three before Doncic even got into the frame.

Vucevic then faced Chris Paul in a more competitive battle that saw both hit the pass but Paul blow the layup, giving Vucevic a brief lead. The two missed initial threes but the big man from Orlando was able to knock it down under CP3’s attempt to punch his ticket to the all-big man finals.

In the finals, it once again came down to the three-point shot, and after both missed badly on early efforts, Sabonis found the bottom of the net for the win.

Remember the Star Trek movies? The brand is doing just fine, at least on the TV end, with numerous new shows hanging out on Paramount Plus (née CBS All Access). But it’s going on five years since the last big screen effort, namely 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, which actually more like one of the original shows than its two predecessors (minus that explosive, Beastie Boys-backed climax, of course). Now it appears a new Trek movie is in the works…although it might not involve Chris Pine and crew.

As per Deadline, Kalinda Vazquez — a writer on Fear the Walking Dead, Prison Break, Roadmarks (alongside no less than George R.R. Martin), and Star Trek: Discovery — has been tasked with penning the screenplay, based on her own idea. Details are thin on the ground, though it’s said to be an “original” movie, which sounds a touch ambiguous. Will it recast Captain Kirk and team? Will it be about another ship cruising around the known universe, righting wrongs and getting into alien skirmishes? Who knows!

The last few years have seen numerous attempts to relaunch the film franchise, which J.J. Abrams brought back in 2009. (He’ll be handling this new one as well, having finished up work on those Star Wars movies.) Two sequels followed, but since Beyond — which was co-written by resident Scottie Simon Pegg — there’s been nada. Quentin Tarantino teased his own Trek film — an R-rated affair that could have wound up his final film. That seemed to fall apart, as did another version by Fargo’s Josh Hawley. Paramount has talked about taking the film wing in a new direction, so perhaps this is it.

(Via Deadline)

One of the major bummers of the last few seasons has been the status of Blake Griffin. The man who was once known for spectacular dunks had slowly formed himself into one of the most complete players in the NBA, while playing for the Detroit Pistons. Despite this, the Pistons were anywhere from mediocre to terrible while he was in Detroit so no one really got to appreciate Griffin playing some of the most skilled basketball of his career. Eventually, injuries took their toll and Griffin has just sadly not been the same.

With Griffin past his prime, and tired of playing for a team that is clearly in a rebuilding phase, the Pistons and agreed to a buyout, with the team waiving him so he could go sign with a contender. According to The Athletic, the Brooklyn Nets are on their way to bringing him in now that he’s cleared waivers. He’ll be playing alongside Kyrie Irving, James Harden, and Kevin Durant. This will also pair him with former Los Angeles Clippers teammate Deandre Jordan.

Griffin might not be the same player he used to be, but this could be a spectacular addition to a Nets team already filled with All-Stars. In Detroit, Griffin became very accustomed to running the offense and the Nets play a style that lends itself to offensive creators. It would not be weird to see Griffin bring up the ball every once in a while and play pick and roll with Kevin Durant, or to be the screener for Harden.

The Nets themselves also gain yet another offensive piece without any real risk, or needing to unload any assets to do so. Brooklyn has one of the most efficient offenses in the NBA this season and it’s hard to not see Griffin making it even better, even in small doses.

NBA All-Star is always a big weekend for sneaker companies, as they launch new colorways for their stars to honor their appearance in the midseason festivities. This year, there is obviously a different feel to the proceedings, as a number of players have voiced concern with having the game and, on Sunday, we learned the Sixers two All-Stars, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, will both miss the game due to contact tracing from a barber in Philly.

The other 22 players are set to play in this evening’s game and competitions, along with the four additional players participating in the Skills Competition and Dunk Contest, and many of them are breaking out some special kicks for the night.

Stephen Curry will wear a “Wish Flow” colorway of his signature sneaker, with Under Armour and Foot Locker donating $1,000 for each point he scores to Good Sports, Inc.

Damian Lillard broke out a new “Rose City” colorway of his Dame 7s for the All-Star Game.

Kawhi Leonard has a bright pair of his New Balance signature for the occasion, while teammate Paul George has a bright green edition of his PG5.

The Nike crew of George, LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving each have a special All-Star colorway of their signature lines releasing for the weekend.

A closer look at the Nets duo of Kyrie and James Harden’s kicks for the evening.

Chris Paul will wear a colorway of his signature sneaker honoring HBCUs on Sunday, as he’s been among those spearheading efforts to have this year’s game benefit HBCUs, among other initiatives he’s been a part of in the last few years.

Jaylen Brown will wear some T-Macs for his All-Star debut.

Donovan Mitchell has a bright colorway of his D.O.N. Issue 2 cued up.

Bradley Beal, Luka Doncic, Mike Conley, and Obi Topping will have special Jordan 35s on Sunday.

Julius Randle and Domantas Sabonis will wear the All-Star Kobe 6 Protro for the game.

The Blazers duo competing in the Skills Competition and Dunk Contest both broke out the Nike Cosmic Unity’s for the events.

Nikola Vucevic will wear some Kyrie 7s for his second All-Star appearance.

Morgan Wallen’s chart dominance has entered its second month, as his album Danergous has yet again maintained its position at No. 1 this week. The singer shared his sophomore effort at the beginning of the year and it quickly broke records on the Billboard 200. Dangerous tallied biggest streaming week in country music history, with 240 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs. This kicked off a lengthy streak of chart-topping weeks that continued despite a racial slur controversy that resulted in his record label contract being suspended. Despite that, Wallen’s album has continued to sell big, now entering its eighth week atop to the charts.

The feat makes Wallen one of five country artists to land eight or more total weeks at No. 1, while he remains the only country artist to spend their first eight weeks atop the charts. The singer extended his streak thanks to 82,000 units sold on the chart dated March 13. The number is backed by 75,000 streaming equivalent album units and 6,000 pure album sales. Wallen is currently tied with Eagles’ Hotel California and Garth Brooks’ The Hits for the fourth-most weeks at No. 1 for a country album. Dangerous has also also tied Taylor Swift’s 2020 album, Folklore, for the second-most weeks at No. 1 in the last five years. Drake’s Views has the most thanks to thirteen non-consecutive weeks in 2016.

This week marks a year since much of the nation went into lockdown, in an attempt to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of people have been marking the occasion in one way or another. Some are piling on an old Elon Musk tweet, in which the moneyed entrepreneur predicted it wouldn’t be that bad. (Whoops.) Meanwhile, one of the first public figures to test positive — Rita Wilson, along with her husband Tom Hanks — took to Instagram to note the first anniversary of when she thinks she caught it.

“One year ago today I was playing the Sydney Opera House @sydneyoperahouse , the next day started feeling very tired and achy, two days later hospitalized with Covid 19,” the actress wrote in the caption. She then thanked the medical team that helped her and Hanks while they were in Australia, as well as musicians she’s been listening to. “Music has been very healing this year. So thankful for that, too.”

When the two revealed that they tested positive, Hanks was set to appear in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic about Elvis Presley, playing his manager Colonel Tom Parker. That, of course, never happened. Hanks and Wilson were treated, went into quarantine, and eventually came back to their home in Los Angeles. Hanks later revealed that Wilson had it much rougher than he did, although his was no walk in the park either. Hopefully by this time next year we’ll all be in a much, much better place.

(Via Deadline)

A fictional world with superheroes is bound to be very different from the one we actually live in, but The Boys universe is only slightly more absurd than ours, at least when it comes to shameless corporations peddling gendered products. Showrunner Eric Kripke knows that better than anyone, which is probably why the second set of images we’ve seen from the set of Season 3 features lots of pink guns targeted toward women.

We’ve already seen a very, uh, up close look at a Homelander statue from the man behind the series. But Kripke shared the latest images on Saturday, showing off three photos from the set in Toronto that show off a new line of Vaught Industries products: GalGear by Vought.

The first image is of what looks to be promotional material for a line of women-marketed weaponry. A banner featuring a woman holding a rifle called Linda Lockett has the GalGear brand name, along with a quote from Lockett about how much she loves guns.

“I love protecting my family,” Lockett says. The second image is more to the point: a banner that reads “Girls just want have guns,” along with what appears to be a much younger woman in hunting camo holding a rifle.

A third image really drove the point home: a hot pink rifle apparently also ready to make an appearance in Season 3.

Interestingly, that image appears to be a photo taken of a monitor of some sort, so it’s unclear if that’s from an in-show ad that will run or simply the showrunner taking a picture of what’s being filmed appearing on a monitor on set.

It’s unclear just how guns will protect you from a person who can make your head explode just by looking at you but, hey, a sale’s a sale. Especially in as cynical a universe as the one shown in The Boys.

Following a rather short-lived beef with his label, Rod Wave is ready to release some new music to his fans. The Florida rapper took to Instagram to announce that his upcoming project, Soulfly, will arrive at the end of the month. He shared the news in a post that displayed the project’s tracklist, which presents 19 songs for listeners to enjoy, as well as newly-released merch and photos from what can be assumed is an upcoming music video. Soulfly will also be a predominantly solo effort outside of a lone guest appearance from Chicago rapper, Polo G.

It was just a little over a month ago that the Florida native put his label, Alamo Records, on blast for apparently not paying him. In a post to his Instagram story, he said, “P*ssy ass label playing wit a n**** sh*t I ain’t dropping sh*t f*ck ya pay me. Y’all wanna album ask @alamorecords.” Just a few days later he apologized for the post and revealed that everything was “cool” now with his label.

You can check out the announcement above and the tracklist below.

1. “Soul Fly (Intro)”
2. “Gone Till November”
3. “Blame On You”
4. “Don’t Forget”
5. “Tombstone”
6. “All I Got”
7. “Richer” Feat. Polo G
8. “Street Runner”
9. “Pillz & Billz”
10. “How The Game Do”
11. “Shock Da World”
12. “What’s Love?? (Interlude)”
13. “OMDB”
14. “Invisible Scar”
15. “Calling”
16. “Sneaky Links”
17. “Believe Me”
18. “Moving On”
19. “Changing (Outro)”

Soulfly is out 3/26 via Alamo Records.

Elon Musk was the talk of Twitter over the weekend, but unlike other times he’s gone viral, it wasn’t because of something he did recently. It revolved around an old tweet from a media outlet that got people debating just how smart the Tesla and SpaceX founder actually is.

The New York Post did a story about potential plans for a neural implant that would make people smarter, with the headline “Could Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chips make us all as smart as he is?”

The headline was met with immediate backlash on Twitter, causing people to talk about how smart the billionaire actually is.

Later, the Post published the story with a different headline on Twitter.

But that didn’t stop screenshots of the tweet to keep talk on Twitter going.

A lot of people pointed to Musk’s insistence that the COVID-19 pandemic wouldn’t be that big a deal in 2020, especially in the wake of 500,000 Americans dying from the virus a year later.

Most just wanted to know more about this brain chip that’s supposed to make us all genius billionaires.

We’ll have to wait and see if this chip does what it says it can do, but there are plenty of folks out there who don’t seem too optimistic about the concept — especially considering the brains behind it.

Calling anyone an “epic trophy wife” is probably not a great idea for a man of the cloth, but it’s especially troublesome if the person you’re describing is Melania Trump. A pastor got himself into hot water by doing just that during a sermon that quickly went viral when video of it was posted online.

Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark, a Baptist pastor in Missouri, was placed on leave in the wake of the sermon where he was critical of women and their appearance in a speech that was described as sexist at the very least. A BBC story detailed some of what’s in the 22-minute video of the sermon, which was posted on Facebook and quickly spread to other social media sites as well.

In it, he is seen using a well-known online meme of a distracted boyfriend to tell women not to “give him a reason to be looking around”.

He tells churchgoers that it is “really important” for men to have a beautiful woman on their arm, asking the crowd: “Why is it so many times that women, after they get married, let themselves go?”

“Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump, I’m not saying that at all,” he says, as an image of the former First Lady appears on screen behind him.

“Most women can’t be trophy wives, but you know… maybe you’re a participation trophy.”

You can watch a bit of the clip below.

The backlash to the sentiment was pretty significant, both in the comments from the pastor but also in him calling Trump a role model to emulate. The pastor got some ire from Twitter, to say the least.

And so did Melania Trump, who didn’t exactly ask for this but also has earned her own ire over the last four years after various instances where she quietly supported her husband’s long like of racist, sexist and insurrectionist behavior along with her own controversies. Such as, for example, saying she didn’t give a f*ck about Christmas.

Some had other ideas of who to emulate.

Either way, don’t expect to see any more videos from this pastor talking about what women should be doing anytime soon.