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A tense exchange occurred between Utah Jazz standout Donovan Mitchell and Inside the NBA‘s Shaquille O’Neal on Thursday night following Utah’s 129-118 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Mitchell, fresh off of a 36-point outing, had the big man say he didn’t have what it took to take his game to “the next level,” and he responded by getting pretty upset, noting that he’s heard that from the day he walked into the league.

It was rather odd to hear Shaq say something like that after Mitchell had a big game — in particular because he’d been beefing with Mitchell’s teammate, Rudy Gobert, in recent days — but there were some folks who questioned why Mitchell wasn’t a big fan of hearing something like that from someone who has won everything there is to win in the league, including four championships.

In fact, that question — to paraphrase, why aren’t current players receptive to criticism from legends — got asked by Cuffs the Legend on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, and two of the league’s most respected veterans decided to chime in: LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

James and Durant are no stranger to getting critiques from older players throughout their careers for various reasons, so it is interesting that they chimed in and made clear that guys who are out of the league don’t always have the most positive impact when they offer up criticisms in some form or fashion.

They, of course, did not specifically mention the Mitchell and Shaq exchange, but that’s the sort of thing that seems to pop up every now and then — an older player, either in good faith or some other reason, says something that rubs a current player the wrong way, and we get a news cycle out of the exchange. At the very least, those players in the Mitchell camp can probably take some solace in knowing two of the league’s current elder statesmen appear have their back when this sort of thing goes down.

In the aftermath of the latest Verzuz battle between Ashanti and Keyshia Cole, fans are already fan-casting their desired follow-ups. One such suggestion got the attention of its subject, but rather than accepting, he made an intriguing counteroffer that now has both artists trending on Twitter. When a fan account posited a Freddie Gibbs Vs. Pusha T battle for the title of “King Of Coke Rap,” Gibbs himself chimed in. “F*ck a versus,” he rejoined. “I would make this album tho.”

It isn’t too far out of the realm of possibility for the two cocaine rap aristocrats. They previously collaborated on a pair of tracks: “Palmolive,” from Gibbs’ joint album with Madlib, and “Good Morning,” from Black Thought’s Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able EP. Both songs also featured Killer Mike. Meanwhile, both Gibbs and Push have collaborated with Griselda Records’ Benny The Butcher, as well as receiving production from Madlib, who Pusha hinted was also producing one of his upcoming projects.

As far as that last Verzuz goes, fans were disappointed that the show started almost an hour late, but later delighted when O.T. Genasis cameoed, squashing his feud with Cole over his Crip anthem rendition of her song “Love.” Meanwhile, 21 Savage entertained fans on a stream of his own as the usually deadpan, menacing MC traded in his tough-guy schtick to belt out full-throated renditions of the Verzuz contestants’ songs.

Just for fun, check out Freddie Gibbs and Pusha T’s “Palmolive” above.

While on a break from his normal routine of showing up to Donald Trump rallies looking like Dick Tracy’s Nazi uncle, Roger Stone has written a scathing op-ed eviscerating Steve Bannon for receiving a presidential pardon. Back in August 2020, Bannon was arrested for multiple counts of fraud by the U.S. Postal Service police, which was particularly ironic at the time because Trump’s new postmaster general was in the process of sabotaging the postal system in an effort to impede mail-in voting during the presidential election. Bannon and others allegedly embezzled funds raised by Trump supporters to “Build the Wall” between the United States and Mexico, and it’s for that offense that Stone thinks he should’ve been denied a pardon. Via Stone Cold Truth:

The crime Steve Bannon was accused of had nothing to do with Donald Trump or the Trump campaign. He stole $1 million from small-dollar donors who thought they were trying to build the wall. Bannon has been a less than loyal ally of the president, even openly discussing a challenge or an effort to succeed Trump himself in the White House.

The progenitor of hobo chic, Bannon actually chases down hobos to get their clothes. The rest is dumpster diving. A little hot water and soap wouldn’t hurt either.

Nothing like having your fashion sense criticized by a guy who dresses like a Batman villain. Of course, the real reason behind Stone’s salty rant, which he mentions several times in his screed, is the fact Bannon testified against Stone in court and accused of him being an “access point” between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. While Stone was found guilty, he was pardoned by Trump before he started his sentence. However, while Stone clearly thinks he deserved his pardon for remaining loyal to Trump while Bannon did not, Stone is confident that he’ll be having the last laugh.

“Bannon will be charged with money laundering along with another foreign-born individual soon,” he wrote. “So in the end, his pardon by President Trump will not spare him from the incarceration he so richly deserves.”

(Via Stone Cold Truth)

Jay-Z isn’t exactly a rapper who’s synonymous with smoking weed. HOVA doesn’t name-check strains in every verse like Snoop, he’s never been the “lonely stoner” type like Kid Cudi, and these days he seems far more likely to pour a dram of impossibly expensive whiskey or his partially-owned D’ussé XO cognac in the booth than he is to rock a Phillies blunt. But while Shawn Carter isn’t a stoner legend, he is a savvy businessman (he’s a business, man) which means he’s well aware that the cannabis market is booming right now.

So it’s no shock that Jigga is leveraging his name and making a play in the weed game. In fact, we’re surprised it took this long.

Those with their eyes on the weed space saw this coming. Back in 2019, Jay took a position at Caliva (one of California’s largest cannabis conglomerates) to serve as the company’s new chief brand strategist. In that role, he developed the MONOGRAM label, took on an ownership stake, and initiated a $10 million fund to invest in Black-owned weed brands. With lots of money on the line, skeptics might write off MONOGRAM as a rushed white-label job — a repackaging of mid-shelf weed with a top-shelf name.

That is, thankfully, not the case.

If you buy all the brand speak, Jay spent 18 months putting together MONOGRAM, calling on the talents of cannabis industry veteran DeAndre “De” Watson, who helped curate and cultivate each of the five strains.

“Cannabis has been around for thousands of years, yet it is still an industry whose legacy of skilled craftsmanship is often overlooked,” Jay-Z said in a press release. “I created MONOGRAM to give cannabis the respect it deserves by showcasing the tremendous hard work, time, and care that goes into crafting a superior smoke.”

That is… very PR sounding. But for better and worse, MONOGRAM genuinely is unlike any other weed brand in the game. We smoked four of the brand’s five strains in all three form factors currently offered, got the full luxury experience, and have a lot of thoughts. Let’s dive in!

The Products & Presentation

One of the things that will strike you first about MONOGRAM is just how different the products look compared to many of the other weed brands out there. That’s a good thing — graphic design in the weed space can be a mess with busy labels, an over-use of psychedelic color palettes, horrible font choices, and sometimes even ridiculous, embarrassing names (I bring this example up a lot but… “Chemical Cat Piss,” anyone?). MONOGRAM has none of that, presenting each of its products (pre-roll loosies, a hand-rolled joint, and flower jars) in sleek black containers with minimal labeling and no strain names at all.

Instead, the strains are numbered (seemingly arbitrarily) — No. 1, No. 3, No. 70, No. 88, No. 96 — and designated with a sensory descriptor of light, medium, or heavy. Whether each strain is an indica, sativa, or hybrid is not disclosed, along with any packaging dates, THC percentages, or CBD content. This is sure to annoy more selective stoners and we’re kind of right there with them on this one. While THC percentage certainly isn’t everything, those with a higher tolerance will want to have a clear idea of what type of high to expect, and MONOGRAM doesn’t make that easy.

(The information is available on the website — and in this article! — but we would’ve preferred it on the packaging. I mean, at least print it on a sticker on the bottom!)

MONOGRAM’s herb is offered in three form factors, a four-pack of mini-pre rolls (No. 88 and 96), two and four-gram flower jars (No. 1 and 3), and a large hand-rolled joint (No. 88 and 96). Altogether, the presentation is great, and aside from a few design decisions that mildly annoy us, we’re going to go ahead and conclude that Jay-Z nailed it on the presentation side of things.

But pretty packaging is just that — packaging. Here are our thoughts on what truly matters.

Least Essential: Strain No. 96 — Pre-Roll Loosies

Price: $40
THC: $25.3%

We’ll start what feels like the least essential MONOGRAM product, the Pre-Roll Loosies. As we mentioned, the packing here is great — four individual mini pre-roll joints individually wrapped in their own plastic airtight vials in a sleek black flip top box. That fine attention to presentation translates to the joints themselves, which are tightly packed with finely ground weed to ensure a nice steady and slow burn, thereby saving you product in between drags.

Which is a good thing because these things are small!

Their slight size makes these Js seem specifically curated for the pandemic era we live in. The days of passing joints between friends might be done (even with a vaccine), but popping open a pack of mini loosies for a quick session in your friend’s backyard? These little joints seem made for that. Still, hardcore stoners won’t get what they’re looking for here, and neither will anyone who winces at the idea of sharing $40 pre-rolls this small.

Our loosies came in Strain No. 96, which MONOGRAM designates as “Heavy.” Does that mean it’s an indica? We’re not so sure. The high didn’t make me feel particularly heavy or weighed down. I didn’t feel an energy sap, experience munchies, or slip into the dreaded couch lock. It felt a lot more along the lines of a hybrid to me but I can’t say for sure.

Each drag was surprisingly smooth though, with a pleasing fruit flavor and a subtle fruity kiss lingering in the milky smoke. Alas, at $40 a pack I’m not sure when I’d reach for these again.

Bottom Line

If you’re just looking for a head change or a light crossfade while you host your favorite brew and you like the look of them or need a conversation starter “This is Jay-Z’s label!” these make for an ideal accompaniment. Those seeking a more serious high should look elsewhere.

Soild Choice: Strain No. 1 — 2G/4G Flower Jar

Price: $40 for 2 gram jar/ $70 for 4 gram jar.
THC: 34%

Before we gush, we need to go on a bit of a rant. We get that Jay-Z is trying to present weed in a different light, one that is more aligned with his modern-day Rockefeller vibe, and we can truly see Beyonce reaching into an expensive designer bag and pulling out a jar of MONOGRAM weed at the end of the night, but this two-gram/four-gram shit is not luxurious, it feels cheap — like my “luxury” weed is being pinched by a dealer who doesn’t have a scale and is “good at eyeballing it.”

We can’t figure out why Jay-Z cut corners here ditching the more traditional eighth (3.5 grams) and quarter (7 grams) weigh-outs. Even if that means bumping up the price by $10, if the product is good enough, people will pay!

Alright rant over, the weed here is, as with the loosies, very good. Designated “Medium,” which again, feels meaningless, strain No. 1 presented me with fluffy deep green buds flecked with orange hairs and a distinct fruity smell, making this weed a joy to break up by hand for a fresh bowl. Don’t do this weed the disservice of tossing it in a grinder.

Lighting this herb brings out a deep piney-meets-skunky aroma and while the smoke is nice and milky here, it does have a bit of a spicy finish that will mildly irritate the nose. The high knocked me out with a single bowl and when I resurfaced it was with the thought that I definitely prefer this form factor over the loosies.

The Bottom Line

Despite a major misstep in sizing, this is a solid choice and certainly makes the case for why a Jay-Z branded weed is a good idea.

Essential: Strain No. 3 2G/4G Flower Jar

Price: $40 for 2 gram jar/ $70 for 4 gram jar.
THC: 34.9%

In my blind rage over sizing, I forgot to mention what I love about the MONOGRAM flower jars. They’re glass, which is a great touch, and they’re totally blacked out, protecting your herb from ultraviolet light. We can’t stress the importance of keeping your weed in a dark place and buying MONOGRAM once will give you a great weed jar for life.

Nice touch, Hov.

Strain No. 3 is easily MONOGRAM’s best sporting frosty, aromatic buds with shimmering crystals and hints of purple petals weaved with wiry orange hairs. Another “Medium” strain, we’re pretty confident this is a hybrid strain. No. 3 is sticky and dense, with cakey crystals — so you should break it up gently by hand. You want those crystals preserved until the moment the fire hits the plant.

No. 3’s true strength is in the flavor, which has hints of minty grape, with a sweet finish that leads to a powerful high. I don’t know that I can attribute this to Strain No. 3, but in the days I was working through the jar I was having some seriously vivid dreams. Whether there’s a correlation there or not, this is definitely an herb ideal for tripping out on your favorite music or going deep into your own thoughts.

The Bottom Line

MONOGRAM’s best tasting and looking strain with a powerful and vivid high. One of the best herbs we’ve smoked so far in 2021.

Best Experience: Strain No. 88 Hand-Roll

Price: $50
THC: 24.9%

I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to like this one. I scoff at the idea of a $50 joint — I don’t care if this one was hand-rolled by Beyonce herself. But I ended up loving it.

De Watson — MONOGRAM’s aforementioned Culture and Cultivation Ambassador — is listed as the chief architect behind MONOGRAM’s OG Handroll. It was clearly his choice not to feature your typical fine grind of weed, and instead load this thing up with tiny nugs, weighing in at over 1.5 grams. That’s more than half an entire MONOGRAM flower jar.

Its gigantic size might lead you to believe this thing was made for sharing, but it wasn’t. It was designed to be able to save for later — just drop it back in its discreet plastic carrying case. (Counterpoint: don’t do that. No joint will ever taste as good and smoke as smoothly as the first time you light it.) Puffing this monster solo and to completion is where MONOGRAM’s promise of luxury comes to fruition.

That’s what I did, and let me tell you: It’s a decadent experience.

This is a special occasion smoke, something you save for celebratory moments. It burns slow and evenly, with sweet and spicy notes mingling in MONOGRAMs stinkiest strain, No. 88. I’d give some notes on what the high was like here, but I smoked the whole thing and my brain was absolutely blasted to another planet. Sorry, not sorry.

The Bottom Line

A $50 hand-rolled joint probably won’t make it into your regular weed purchasing rotation, but when a special occasion rolls around we definitely recommend reaching for this. The experience is unparalleled and the hand-rolled attention to details truly delivers on Jay-Z’s highbrow concept.

There’s no doubt that Draymond Green can be a bit animated at times on the court. He’s a spirited and fiery competitor, and throughout his career, there have been plenty of times where’s allowed his emotions to get the better of him, sometimes at the detriment to his team.

But players like Green also develop something of a reputation, which can lead to being unfairly maligned on the part of the officials, some of whom can be more sensitive to his antics and quicker to pull the trigger on a technical foul. Case in point: his ejection this week for yelling at his own teammate, James Wiseman, this week during a game against the Knicks.

It was his second tech of the game, thus triggering an automatic ejection. Green has since asked for clarity on the matter, and it appears the NBA was listening, as they officially rescinded his second technical on Friday.

The NBA is rescinding the second technical foul on Warriors forward Draymond Green last night vs. New York, which forced him to be ejected late in the first half, the league tells me and @anthonyVslater.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 22, 2021

For a player like Green, who has been known to accumulate technical fouls, every little bit helps, as a smaller total number can help prevent potentially damaging suspensions later, as it did during the 2016 Finals. The Warriors might not currently appear destined for a deep playoff run this season, but regardless, credit to the league for getting this one right.

NBC Sports routinely garners the highest NFL ratings of the season on its tentpole channel, but the dedicated sports network that bears its name will reportedly end in 2021.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reported on Friday that NBC plans to shutter NBC Sports Network, a huge move in the sports world that would see several sports leagues broadcast elsewhere among the company’s network of channels. The network, which began its life as a sports channel billed as Outdoor Life Network when NBC started broadcasting NHL games on it, had grown to cover a variety of sports including the English Premiere League, college basketball and NASCAR.

But Friday word rocked the sports world that the network would soon be no more, leaving uncertainty about where those broadcasts would be shown instead and what would happen to the broadcast teams viewers grew to expect covering them.

Further reporting brought things more into focus: NBCSN would shutter, with broadcasts for the NHL, NASCAR and others moving to USA.

The fear from many about NBC shuffling things around is that they would shelter more sports content on Peacock, the streaming service that has already taken many English Premiere League soccer matches away from broadcast television since it launched. But putting sports on USA isn’t new, either: Olympics coverage would often wind up on the network as well as some EPL matches on big days, and overflow sports broadcasts would also end up there if games in progress did not end in time.

Still, it’s a troubling move for sports fans and those in the sports entertainment industry, and there’s now plenty of uncertainty about big contracts with leagues like the NHL and NASCAR moving forward. And as other companies make strategic decisions with the growth of their streaming services in mind, it’s hard not to frame the decision to shutter NBCSN as more of the same.

Phoebe Bridgers’ career has been on an upward trend since the very start. She has become more and more beloved with each project she releases, and this year, she earned her first Grammy nominations. Now she is set to do something else that very few artists get to put on their resume: Bridgers will be a musical guest on an upcoming episode of Saturday Night Live.

After being on break since mid-December, SNL returns with new episodes starting at the end of this month, and they’re bringing some firepower with them. The January 30 episode will be hosted by John Krasinsky with musical guest Machine Gun Kelly, while the February 6 episode will feature Dan Levy and Bridgers and the February 13 episode will see Regina King and Nathaniel Rateliff. None of the hosts have hosted the show before and none of the musical guests have previously appeared on the program in that capacity either.

Bridgers reacted to the news with a two-image post on Instagram: The first is of the cards SNL shared, and the second is a blurry, close-up photo of Bridgers smiling with eye make-up running down her cheeks.

Here’s hoping that Bridgers can find her way into a sketch as well. She often shows off her strong sense of humor and she has a bit of sketch experience, like with the one she and Conor Oberst did for Conan about a year ago.

The most impactful moment coming out of last weekend’s NFL Divisional Round was Patrick Mahomes crumpling to the ground after a dangerous running play as he scurried to get a first round for the Chiefs, and it led to a day-by-day tick tock of news from NFL reporters about Mahomes’ status for Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.

The wait is over, as Mahomes told reporters on a media call Friday that he has cleared the NFL concussion protocol and will be active against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

While the hit appeared quite hard and Mahomes certainly got up in a daze and had trouble standing afterward, he and the team have been diligent about clearing all the right steps throughout this process. Even after announcing he would be good to go this week, Mahomes denied credit for any “grit” related to playing this week, and focused on the fact that he had been medically cleared.

Of course, this is huge news for Kansas City as well. Their chances against Buffalo get a huge boost with Mahomes behind center rather than Chad Henne. The Chiefs are favored by somewhere in the neighborhood of three points on the betting markets. The AFC Championship game will kick off at 6:40 p.m. ET on Sunday in Kansas City.

The Nets really need a center to play defense around their new Big Three, and reportedly will sign former Sixers backup Norvel Pelle as one option to fill that hole, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

This move is directly related to the trade that brought James Harden to town. As part of that deal, the Nets sent Jarrett Allen, who had started to get minutes in the starting lineup and looked to be a potential major contributor to this team’s success, to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

That forced veteran DeAndre Jordan into a huge role as effectively the only traditional center on the roster, and while he’s played fine over the first few games of this new era, it wasn’t tenable to move forward with only him in that spot. As just one illustration of the problem, nearly every rotation player for the Nets played 40-plus minutes in an overtime game against Cleveland earlier this week.

As Joel Embiid’s backup last year in Philadelphia, Pelle played nearly 10 minutes per game and averaged more than a block per game. He was with the Sixers as recently as the Bubble. Pelle brings legit NBA size and athleticism with decent defensive instincts. He won’t be the difference between Brooklyn’s defense being passable versus championship-caliber, but he will give the Nets depth, and as Wojnarowski also noted, Brooklyn still has three more roster spots open to add players.

Pelle must clear the NBA health and safety protocol rules before officially joining the Nets.

Eminem’s love for combat sports is no secret. Anytime he can mix his music with his passion for boxing or mixed martial arts, he really goes for it. Just check out the soundtrack for Southpaw, the 2015 boxing drama inspired by him that he was originally billed to star in. He also dabbles in boxing himself, although he told Mike Tyson he wouldn’t be stepping into the ring professionally anytime soon.

With that said, he has found a way to participate in the upcoming rematch between Justin Poirier and Conor McGregor at UFC 257. Rather than taking part with his fists, he’s using the fight as a cross-promotional activity for his Music To Be Murdered By single “Higher,” premiering the video for the song during a broadcast this Saturday on ABC. To help hype up both the premiere and the fight, ESPN released a teaser announcing the video, which also features cameos from Dana White and ESPN’s Michael Eaves, according to its press release. It’ll also likely feature some fan-produced content, judging by this tweet Eminem sent earlier this week:

Em’s 2020 was better than most, as Music To Be Murdered By broke a 50-year-old Billboard record with its “Side B” deluxe version.

Watch the teaser for the “Higher” video above. You can watch the full video on ABC Saturday, 1/23 at 2 pm ET.